


Midnight's Children

by mudgems



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Action/Adventure, Captivity, Dark, Drama, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Whump, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 13:58:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 42,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5208434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mudgems/pseuds/mudgems
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What they were really deciding here was to accept, on their own terms, that they may not get out of this alive. To control the manner of their own suffering by refusing to play the game. To face the worst of what their captors could inflict upon them before they became too weak not to break.</p><p>She could be strong if he could. They would do this together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The stench, the absolute squalor of the place -- it was almost more than Sam could bear.

She adjusted the weight of her P90, the strap sliding slickly against the hot skin of her neck. A heavy bead of sweat inched from her hairline down her temple, finding its way unerringly to the sensitive membrane of her eye. It burned like acid for a moment and she resisted the powerful urge to swipe at it with the back of her forearm. Just a few more seconds. A few more unrelenting, maddeningly protracted, mercilessly tense moments, and she could uncoil like a loaded spring, could finally realise the full potential of the adrenaline surging through her system.

She ignored the dull ache in the balls of her feet, the uncomfortable stretch of abused muscle, the acrid sting at the back of her throat. She was the blade of the knife, the point of the bullet. Ready. Deadly. Cold.

Mitchell, just visible in the murk ahead of her, the back of his fatigues soaked and clinging at the small of his back and in the valley between his shoulder blades, raised one fist in the air. Time slowed. Breath stalled. Senses heightened. There was only the whump, whump, whump of her blood thundering through her veins, the thwish, thwish, thwish of its answering echo in her ears. Her vision narrowed to a single point: the filthy tunnel intersecting their own; their goal; the last obstacle barring their way.

Her own hot breath blasted across the overheated surface of her wrist, her weapon poised and clammy against her cheek. Each lungful was cloying, every exhale an effort. Mitchell remained frozen, the gleam of greasy brickwork just discernible beyond his outline. She waited for the smallest movement to interrupt that meagre shine, and when it came, the economy of it was incongruous to the carefully orchestrated chaos it unleashed.

A flick of the wrist, and the signal was given.

Sam launched from her position, aware of Teal'c's solid form in her periphery doing likewise, swinging his considerable bulk around the opposite corner a fraction of a second after the stun grenades flashed, banged, smoked the path ahead of them. A whoosh of air as she hit and rolled, coming up without pause to fire on the enemy, some of them staggering, some shouting, all of them already marked for death. No mercy. No regret. No time to think or reason. Pure instinct and training. Carefully rationed fury, siphoned, directed, channelled, boiling down to the feel of a finger on the trigger, the slam of the stock, the report ringing in her ears.

The tumble of bodies. The clatter of weapons. The drifting fog of the spent grenades. Almost before she could consciously grasp the fact, it was done. The sharp cold of foetid liquid seeping into her clothing registered somewhere in the back of her mind, alongside the metallic tang of blood in her nostrils and an electric bite -- pain, she realised absently -- thrumming along her thigh. Unimportant. Time later to take stock of the damage.

"Everyone okay?" Mitchell. His voice quick. Precise. Efficient. He felt the infectious urgency, too.

She heard Teal'c's deep affirmative. "I'm good," she added, already rising to her feet. Stepping over the bodies, kicking fallen weapons to one side. No inclination to check for life signs. Unarmed and therefore safely dismissed. Faceless. Any other considerations could wait.

She felt the absence of Teal’c at her back as he moved to examine the opposite route, but she didn’t need to check the way behind. She knew. This was the way. She called to him without looking back, moving deeper into the oppressive dark, her weapon raised and its flashlight beam fixed to slice through the choking miasma of lightlessness, stink and heat. It was a physical, solid thing: a living entity that forced its way into her nose and mouth, invaded her every pore. Her senses rebelled in disgust against its unnatural push. She shut down the need to turn her face from it.

The subtlest of sounds drew her attention, her head snapping with magnetic precision towards their origin. Human sounds. A whimper. A breath. A rustle of fabric. She almost denied them notice. Wanted with a fierce and sudden desperation to be mistaken. Not real. They couldn’t be. No creature could survive down here. No self-aware being would want to. Almost six months was too long. Impossible. Unthinkable. Terrible beyond words.

Still her treacherous feet compelled her forwards. A wet, unidentifiable slush yielded to the tread of her boots. The stink of death and human waste assaulted her senses as she passed cell after cell, their doors open to release their noxious aromas. Most were empty. Two contained the putrefying remains of long abandoned inmates, their bodies liquefying in plain view for any who cared to watch. Beyond a perfunctory glance to check for identifying features, she spared them little thought. It was not callousness that stayed her emotions. She had a job to do. Her survival, and that of her friends, was reliant on her keeping it together. Behind her, she thought she heard Mitchell gag.

At the very end of the hallway, the beam of Sam’s flashlight hit upon a seam in the wall. A low door. Solid, with a hatch barely wide enough to look through set in its precise centre. She bent to peer into the cramped space beyond, raking the light over its slimy walls, its grimy floor, its low ceiling that allowed no room to stand. The huddled form in the far corner.

A sharp nod of confirmation and she stepped back. She turned her head and promised herself it would be the last time she would look away. Teal'c's staff weapon pounded the locking mechanism with a pulse of blinding energy and it shattered with a burst of sparks and ozone.

Like all the others, the door had no handle, no hinges. Teal'c threw his weight against it, his forearm jammed against the metal, his large hand barely fitting into the hatch for purchase. With a reluctant, jarring scrape, the panel began to shift on its runners, and wedging his body into the space coerced into being, Teal'c forced the sliding door into its cavity with a resounding clang.

All thoughts of darting straight into that claustrophobic space left Sam's head as soon as the deed was done. She was about to cross into some unholy sanctuary. To pass the point of no return. She was entering the unknown to expose a foul collection of evil secrets, misery and shame. To acknowledge it was to make it real. To pull it into the cold light of day was cruelty beyond comprehension.

She pulled the strap of her weapon over her head, handing it wordlessly to Teal'c. He took it grimly and said nothing, barely concealed rage simmering beneath his composure. Behind her, Mitchell thumbed his radio. "We've got them. Stand by."

A terse nod from him and she crawled into the room. The cell. The hovel. Mitchell's flashlight traced the outline of the huddled figure before her, its back to them all, hunched over its precious bundle. She knelt, not touching. Leaving space. Giving ground. The syllables came thickly to her lips, her throat closing against them even as she forced them out. Low. Soothing. Fearful.

"Daniel."

A flinch, and the figure huddled lower, pressed closer to the corner of the cell. He began to rock, a low, tuneless humming his only response. She tried his name again, and the volume increased.

Willing her fingers to steady, she reached forward with a cautious hand, the barest whisper of a touch to his shoulder. He started violently, head whipping round with a terrified snarl, and she snatched her hand back. His hair, shorn jarringly short, was tacky with filth, the stark angles of his face obscured by only the barest of stubble. Wild eyes darted without recognition or comprehension, misery written in the tear tracks through the grime on his skin.

Sam held up her hands, wide and open. Not a threat. Non-aggressive. Friend. The very same gesture she'd seen Daniel produce on a countless number of occasions. If he recognised it she couldn't discern. He responded only with wary silence, blinking in bewilderment at the poor light intruding upon the insidious dark. Feral. Unpredictable. Pitiful.

"Daniel," Sam began again, somehow finding the moisture required for speech. "It's really us. We've come to take you home."

The suspicion was palpable. A malignant force that tightened her gut as those eyes, hysteria bright, skittered from hers to the shapes in the doorway, then back to her again. There was a frightening finality in the quietly whispered 'no' and he turned his head away.

Brutal to push, to continue with this gentle torture, but Sam could not back down. _No choice. Must press forward. No time._ She shuffled towards him just slightly, narrowing the space between them, motioning for the others to stay where they were. Perhaps borne of some intuitive empathy, they crouched to their haunches, offering a less threatening presence.

Sam once more laid a feather-light hand on Daniel's shoulder, eliciting a shudder and a moan, but she did not remove it. Mindful of the nervous sideways glances being flicked in her direction, she craned her head carefully, making her intentions clear.

"Let me see, Daniel. Please. I promise I won't hurt her."

His breathing began to chuff between them in panicked gasps and the shoulder beneath her hand tensed. She urged again and eased even closer, pressing her body up against him. He squeezed his eyes closed and shook his head in wordless denial, but seemed powerless to stop her as she reached to place tentative fingers against the pale expanse of throat.

Vala's voluptuous hair was gone, hacked obscenely to her scalp in ugly, uneven tufts, leaving nothing to bar the way for Sam's searching fingers. Daniel's breath caught and he froze as they made contact, his eyes fixed on the spot where her fingertips met skin. Sam's own lungs seized without conscious command, her body stilling completely as she willed life into the cool flesh beneath her touch. An eternity stretched. Eyes at her back bored into her. Silence and unspoken prayers. Then a rush of air expelled in welcome relief. The faint flutter of a pulse beneath her fingertips. "She's alive," she confirmed to the door, and knew Mitchell would take care of the rest.

Sam allowed herself an indulgent moment to breathe, to feel again, to close her eyes just briefly. Daniel relaxed almost imperceptibly by her side as, of their own accord, her fingers began a thankful caress of Vala's jaw.

Once the abating terror had diminished to its customary, ever present thrill, she assessed the man in front of her as best she could in the darkness, noting the delicate tremble, the sharp wristbones, the layer of unmentionable filth coating his body and clothing. Vala was wrapped in what was left of Daniel's jacket and the remains of his tattered shirt hung loosely from his frame.

The rocking began again, and her heart ached. Despite everything, she felt alone and unprepared. _Fuck._ There was not enough time to do this. No time to be gentle, to be patient, to be humane. They didn't have time to spare. _Vala_ didn't have time.

The unmistakable pounding of approaching personnel broke the pregnant silence, and Daniel clutched Vala more tightly to himself. The humming returned, an extra edge of mania to it this time, the flavour of impending breakdown in its dissonance. The clack and clatter of equipment being prepared reverberated through the tunnel outside. Sam moved her hand cautiously to the back of his neck, hoping to ground him against the onrushing fear. She needed to take charge. She needed to be strong for him.

"Look at me, Daniel," she ordered, her voice brooking no argument. His eyes snapped to hers, wide and bright. "I know this is difficult, but you need to let us take her, okay? Let us help."

She had to fight her own instincts, choke back the desiccating lump crawling up her throat as Daniel began shaking his head again, mouthing the word 'no' with each completed denial. Cruel to do this. Cruel to be kind. They didn't have time. She stretched both hands out to grasp his wrists, encircling Vala with her own arms in a mockery of his embrace.

"No, no," he crooned, becoming progressively louder as the pressure of her grip increased. Her gentle, empty reassurances, her shushing and murmured apologies did nothing to calm him as she inexorably forced his arms to open. _You can let her go now. It's okay. It's all going to be okay._

His resistance and the heartbreaking pleas almost broke her. She didn't have the strength to do this. Her eyes made a pathetic appeal to the doorway and Mitchell hung his head. No way out of this. He knew. He knew it had to be done. They just didn't have enough _time._

_Don't make me do this. Please, don't make me do this._

Conflicting surges of gratitude and horror as Mitchell approached to help, wrapping himself round Daniel's back, pinning his arms, easing him backwards, drawing him away from the limp body he fought to protect. Sam scooped Vala from Daniel's lap as Mitchell finally pulled them apart and felt as though she were stamping on fingers scrabbling at a cliff edge.

The physical contact broken, Daniel became frantic, at once keening and sobbing, and struggled weakly in Mitchell's firm grasp. That he lacked the strength to add volume to his screams only made them more distressing to listen to.

Sam felt shocky and sick even as she gathered Vala's unresponsive form to her chest, cradling her as gently as she could. Without needing to look, she could sense Teal'c ushering the stretcher team into position, the tight confines of the cell requiring them to manoeuvre awkwardly in the tunnel outside. Daniel's hoarse cries abruptly changed, harsh and raspy but no less difficult to hear. Hopelessness and grief. He was calling Vala's name.

Forcing herself to block out the crippling sounds of anguish, Sam positioned the frighteningly light body in her arms for the airman to take, entrusting Vala to near strangers only because the situation demanded it. The transfer was quick, and within moments she was being lifted for transport.

Once Vala was taken from sight, Daniel folded in on himself, shaking, a thin, broken wail poured into the ground. This was wrong. Ruthless. "I'm sorry," Sam heard herself repeating uselessly, a whisper when she wanted to shout, and the meaningless words shattered into a million sharp and deadly fragments each time they left her lips. _It's okay. It's going to be okay. Isn't it? Please let it be okay._

The meeting of eyes. Mitchell's glittering and fierce in the dark. Hers filmed with unshed tears, warping the scene before her like a hellish house of mirrors. The more time they spent here, the greater the risk. SG-3 held the 'gate, but for how much longer? They had no time to waste. Still she could not move, felt her mind stutter and catch on the suffering in front of her. Frozen in horror.

Then there came Teal'c's presence beside her. No words needed. He would take control. Thank God. He knew what to do. A tragic parody of the same scene, Mitchell holding Daniel's shuddering body tightly against his chest, his grip fixed, his hard eyes challenging. Teal'c placed a hand on his shoulder and returned his gaze, and in that loaded moment an understanding was shared. The barest of nods and Mitchell's grip eased by a fraction. Permission. Acceptance.

The glint of a needle in the flashlight's beam and a tender grip on an under-fleshed arm. The point slid easily beneath skin loosened by dehydration, Teal'c's movements quick, methodical, calm. He rested a reassuring hand -- at once a benediction, compassion and apology -- on the back of Daniel's head as they waited for the drug to take effect. A small mercy; the only one they could offer. Sam wondered which of them exactly was being spared.

She couldn't be grateful for this. Would that come later? Would the relief she so desperately craved, had sought so tirelessly all these months, finally be granted to her, or was that a fantasy that would never be realised? Here they were again, finally reunited, all mercifully alive, home just a short dash away, and yet it wasn't enough. Selfish, perhaps, but she wouldn't be satisfied with this. Her hand anchored itself to Daniel's ankle as though this trinity of touch could make anything better.

The wrenching, near soundless cries faded first to exhausted gasps, then with a drunken moan and a wispy sigh, ceased altogether. Teal'c gathered up the reluctantly loosening limbs and lifted his charge into his arms.

SG-1 was finally going home. The perpetual midnight looked on with indifference as they left the cell, closing in to reclaim its domain in the wake of the departing flashlights. Sam spared one last look behind her before turning to follow her team, and wondered why it felt like they were leaving something behind in that dark and terrible room.


	2. Chapter 2

_Undesignated planet, five months, three weeks earlier_

The side of his hand thumped rhythmically against something warm and firm. In a distant land far, far away, he could just make out the _wap wap wap_ of rubbing fabric which, if he concentrated very hard, merged to keep time with each swing of his hanging arm. The supreme effort required to connect these two simple pieces of information -- the soft sound with the hypnotic motion, the cause with the effect, the action with its reaction -- invited razor sharp lightning to arc from his eye socket, snap across the top of his skull and ground itself somewhere between the deep joints of his neck. He stopped thinking altogether for a while and allowed the merciful darkness to soften his edges.

The concepts of time and space dimmed and fluctuated around him. A trickle of something warm and wet snaked its way across his brow and began to drip at a peculiar right angle from his cheekbone. The sensation felt strangely wrong and was just distracting enough to prevent complete surrender to unconsciousness. He fixated on its ticklish caress, hoping it would guide him back down towards that welcoming nothingness, but found that he couldn’t fully escape the incessant throb of pain vying for his attention. It was voracious, an untamed, sentient agony that emanated from somewhere behind his temples and expanded to impossible proportions, pushing out from the confines of his skull and swamping everything in its path. It was too magnificent and terrible to examine and he shied away from it, fled blindly and desperately before its promise of madness. 

The friendly rivulet diverted course and spread warmth in a broader swathe, curling gently towards his chin. Nothing to fear here. This was not pain, only sensation. He welcomed it. He focussed on it with all the attention he could summon.

“Wait, we need to stop,” a voice said from the other end of a long, echoing tunnel. 

The comforting rhythm and susurrus of movement stilled suddenly. He mourned its loss; the silence and stillness beckoned the pain ever closer. Without those distractions, he couldn’t keep the pain contained. It was breaking free. Breaking out. Fracturing and shattering him. He’d let his attention slip and it was dragging at his edges, pulling him in. Yearning for the safety of dark oblivion, he felt himself falling. The world performed a sickening pirouette around him which seemed to do the trick, and he sank gratefully into the yawning pit that swallowed him.

\---

Percussive blasts and multi-coloured darkness. Overwhelming pressure and throbbing, relentless pain. Disconnected sensory input. His thoughts flew apart in a shatter of bright fragments when he tried to follow even the simplest of threads. Best not to try. 

Cool moistness passed fleetingly over the side of his face. Sounds filtered in and out of their own accord, unwelcome and irritating. A low murmur that insisted on recognition. If he’d been capable of anything quite so sophisticated as movement, he’d have swatted the nuisance away. As it was, he wasn’t yet entirely certain he existed beyond a general sense of miserable discomfort. He vaguely longed for whoever was being summoned to hurry up and answer the disembodied voice and make it stop. Then the sounds faded for a while and he decided he could stop worrying about it.

Time must have passed. It was cold. Cold enough that he couldn’t ignore it anymore. And his head hurt. Why did he hurt so much? He couldn’t remember. Thinking in general was a laborious and uncomfortable process. He experimented with a simple command to what should have been his hand; he wanted to rub away some of the pain from his head. His motor control lacking, the attempt resulted in a heavy slap of dead weight in the general vicinity of his face. The jarring, self-inflicted blow loosed a grunt and sent sparkling star bursts dancing across the insides of his eyelids. The pain was breathtaking. He rode it out, a powerless passenger tossed and slammed against the confines of his own mind. Only when he was a little more confident the black was receding again did he try once more to master the offending limb. 

His clumsy fingers bumped against something bulky along his hairline. His instinct was to investigate and then remove the alien object, if only his fingers would cooperate. Before his sluggish brain could order the attack, a strong hand snared his own and thwarted his efforts.

“No, leave that alone,” a mildly impatient voice admonished. His tightly shut eyes scrunched up in an involuntary wince and the hand on his squeezed gently. 

God, it hurt. It hurt to think. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to _be._ He had a vague anxious feeling that he should be doing something, that there was something important he was missing, that something had happened. He absolutely could not risk opening his eyes, even if he’d had the strength to complete such a strenuous task. He couldn’t bear even the slightest stimuli. He had to be still, quiet, dark. He had to just _stop._

He went away again for a little while, and when he came back he realised there was something pressing uncomfortably over his pain’s ground zero. He reached a fumbling hand towards it and found its course firmly diverted by a warm, reassuring pressure. He wanted to protest, but the small sound that emerged only encouraged the distant drone of a voice to come closer. Too loud. Too much. Please, stop. 

The white hot, radioactive agony was beginning to expand again, this time accompanied by a high pitched tinnitus whine that rose in insistent, nauseating volume to block out all other input. It grew, ravenous and deafening, until it crested in a flare of brilliance and whited out the world.

\---

Daniel came back to himself slowly, a piece at a time. Warmth. A gentle, spreading heat suffused through his body, travelling the length of each limb, tingling over his skin, wrapping the exposed nerves twanging in his head in cotton softness, dulling the shrieking agony. Relief. A reprieve from the most urgent of the pain, at least. Some of the muzzy tangle overlaying everything receded somewhat, and sounds began to take shape around him.

“Enough,” a voice commanded, the single word a threat and a jeer all at once.

“What? No--" 

He heard the unmistakable sound of struggling somewhere above him and the warm glow abruptly ceased. The conversation around him faded out momentarily as the full force of the remaining pain made itself known. He’d been foolish to think it had been banished entirely. It was still there, waiting. Pushed back, further away, banked and quiescent beneath a heavy burden of lethargy, but waiting to flare back into life at the slightest provocation. He was unwilling to test its wrath and he hid from it, casting dazedly for an anchor against the swirling currents pulling him back towards that slumbering monster.

“Wake him.” Something nudged him none too gently in the ribs, the force rocking him some of the way over onto his side. He dropped back down again heavily. He was dimly aware of a bloom of pain where the object had connected, but given the competition, it warranted little attention. 

He heard a heavy sigh and sensed a tense moment of hesitation. Was that irritation? “I can’t. He’s still too badly injured.”

“Then he’s of no use to us.” An ominous clicking sound preceded the insect whine of a priming weapon. 

“Wait.” The second voice took on a falsely confident tone. “There’s no need to be so dramatic. I told you, I need him to help me figure out the read outs. He’s our expert on Goa’uld dialects. I may be the mechanical and mathematical brains of this outfit, but usually he or Teal’c helps with the squiggly lettery bits. Just give me a little longer with that device and I can have him good as new.”

A harsh bark of laughter cut the speaker off. “Do you take me for a fool? If you think to escape…”

“No! No, of course not. But if you want our help, I’ll need him in better working order than this.”

“You test my patience, woman.”

“I know, and you’re being very accommodating.” There was a pause, followed by a choked gasp.

“Do not mock me. He talks, or he dies.”

A forced chuckle and a pained rasp pushed past a closing throat. “Well maybe if you hadn’t hit him quite so har--“ There was the fleshy smack of a fist against bone, and the dull thud of a body hitting the ground. 

“We move in one hour. Displease me further and I will withhold your device when we reach our destination.” Heavy footsteps retreated.

“Foul-smelling, toad-featured dullard,” came a mutter, followed by a tentative spitting sound.

Daniel allowed his head to roll to one side and blinked blearily at the unfocused shape shuffling around in his field of vision. The light was thankfully, blessedly muted, all colour leached from the scene. The world was canted at an angle and soft around the edges. The movement in front of him was making him dizzy, and he struggled to find a point to concentrate on. Features and patterns gradually registered with him and he built up a piecemeal picture of his immediate surroundings.

A dark-haired woman was sitting at his side, knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped awkwardly around them. The oversized poncho cinched tightly round her throat and shoulders was slick and shiny, fat raindrops running freely down its sides. Its hood framed her pale face and overhung her eyes. Stray tendrils of long hair had escaped its confines and lay stuck and sodden against her cheeks. A cut across her bottom lip bled sluggishly, a pink-tinged streak dissipating through the rain slick on her face.

As if someone was slowly turning up the volume, Daniel began to register the continuous rattle of spattering rain that was bouncing from his own waterproof covering. Icy splashes pelted his face with relentless glee, each new assault a miniature shock that he couldn’t escape. Something was digging uncomfortably into the small of his back and under his left hip. His limbs felt like lead. His skin was numb and cold. And his head… His head was pounding so hard he felt sick.

His tongue was sticky and too big for his mouth. He licked his lips, and the movement attracted the attention of the woman next to him. She leaned towards him and the world swooped and dived. There were sounds, low and soothing. They eventually separated themselves from the background soundtrack of hissing rain and coalesced again into words. He couldn’t quite grasp their meaning. Something hard was pressed to his mouth and instinct took the reins, shoving him impatiently from the driving seat to accept the water trickling over his chin. Some of the overspill snaked its way insidiously beneath the neckline of his shirt and the chill sharpened his focus.

He found he was somehow propped upright, a warmth at his back and an arm steadying him. The canteen was taken away and his poncho snugged more tightly about his neck. He leaned back gratefully into that bracing weight and tried to block out the insistent sounds that started up again by his ear.

“…aniel?”

Searing waves of pain were slamming into the backs of his eyelids and he screwed up his face against them.

“…listening?”

He couldn’t escape. Couldn’t move. This was too hard. He groaned.

“I know you can hear me. Open your eyes.”

He struggled weakly in defiance of the unreasonable voice. “Uhn,” he forced out. That’ll show her.

The chest behind his back expanded slowly with an exasperated sigh. Its accompanying voice began a low grumble that vibrated through him with every word. “What is it I’m supposed to ask?” it muttered distractedly. “Your birthday or something. But since I don’t know when that is… Or what about mine? No, too many to choose from. And I’ve already told you your name, so that would be cheating. Um, your world leader’s name? Wait, that’s not right…”

The support behind him jolted as it shifted position and Daniel grunted. All this noise and movement was making it harder to drift away.

“Sorry,” the voice continued, and a hand ran apologetically up and down his arm. “Alright then, how about an easy one? What’s _my_ name?” 

Daniel wondered idly if he would be allowed to sleep now that the voice had stopped talking. He was beyond tired and the warmth soaking into his back was a nice change from the cold, wet floor. After a few seconds of silence it became apparent that something was missing. Worry nagged at him and he felt sleep slip away from him again. The voice had been talking to him. Was that it? It was expecting an answer. Daniel’s eyes snapped open with the realisation and he sucked in a panicky breath. God, what was the answer? What was the _question_?

The hand on his arm resumed its soothing motion until he calmed, and the voice patiently repeated the question. “Daniel? Do you know who I am?”

He cast about for some sort of clue, but his mind was frighteningly blank. He could feel his breathing speeding up and struggled to bring his racing thoughts under control. This shouldn’t be so hard. He wasn’t sure about much, but he _knew_ that was true. What had happened to him?

“Shh, it’s okay,” the voice assured him, although he thought he could detect a note of doubt in it somewhere. Or was that fear? 

He wanted to try again and reassure the voice. He wanted to get the answer right. He wanted to actually _know_ something. He knew this. He knew he did. He concentrated on the feel of the slight fingers caressing his arm, the memory of dark hair caught out in the rain, the familiar scent of coconut oil just detectable when the person supporting his weight moved. The coconut aroma of the high end shampoo Vala had proudly displayed to him after a rare trip away from the confines of the base with Sam. A shampoo she’d bought especially because he’d mentioned a liking for the fragrance in passing. A gesture he’d tried not to read too much into. She had paraded around his office for days afterwards, flinging her fragrant hair in great wafts of scent at every opportunity. The vigour with which she’d applied herself to the effort had irritated him for some reason, a reason he’d been loathe to examine too closely. Vala had to play these infuriating little games. Why was she so hard to get a handle on? Wait.

“Va… Vala?”

The arm around his chest squeezed him. “Yes! Yes, that’s right. It’s me, and you’re you. Thank all that’s good.” She released an explosive breath of relief. “Please don’t do that to me again.” 

Thank God. Maybe he wasn’t quite as far gone as he’d feared. And he’d managed to take away some of that distressingly strained quality to the voice speaking to him. Vala’s voice, he corrected himself. Pleased with his progress, Daniel decided to build on his success and attempt another question.

“Wha’s…?”

“What’s going on? Well, to borrow one of your indecipherable Earth phrases, Daniel, we are currently in a boat without a paddle.”

What? They were in a boat? That would perhaps explain the bilious rolling of the surface beneath him. He obviously wasn’t doing as well as he’d hoped. 

Just thinking about the rocking of a boat did strange things to his pounding head. A menacingly familiar surge of dread heralded a rush of heat and icy sweat. It swept upwards from his gut, tightening his throat and making his mouth water unpleasantly. Uh oh. He knew this feeling. Nausea rapidly became his whole world. He gulped and groaned a warning. “Guhna… sick…”

He felt himself hastily lowered back to the ground and rolled onto his side, where he proceeded to do exactly as he’d predicted.

“Urgh,” Vala commented for him with a sympathetic pat. He couldn’t have agreed more. “I’m glad _I_ won’t be carrying you.”

Daniel felt a flush of shame creep up his neck. Despite everything, he felt embarrassed for Vala to see him like this. He couldn’t even roll back over under his own power.

Magnanimously refraining from commenting further on his condition, Vala rearranged the folds of his poncho for him and began a series of steady circles at the small of his back. The grey edges were making a reappearance, and if he listened carefully he thought he could hear snare drums beating an ominous, military tattoo on some distant parade ground. 

Vala was talking again. “I’m not going to lie to you, Daniel; we have definitely been in better situations. I’m not sure where we’re going exactly, but I think we should play along for now. They want me to fix something. And they have a healing device. The really ugly one seems a bit slow, and I’m sure I can come up with something once we’re out of this rain. You just leave things to me.”

Vala wasn’t making a lot of sense. She didn’t seem to expect any kind of response, which was just as well really. Daniel felt increasingly disconnected from his body, a sensation he wholeheartedly welcomed. He closed his eyes and did his best to escape the miserable reality of his situation. By the time their captors came for them, he’d already given in to the cold and fatigue, and was blissfully unaware of the indignity of being hauled away for transport.


	3. Chapter 3

The luminous moon cast a slivery glow on the nightscape below, the wet shine of recent rain picking out the edge of every rock, branch and leaf. A gilded world in monochrome.

This planet’s moon dwarfed Earth’s feeble satellite. From their viewpoint on the sparsely forested ridge it was easy for Vala to pick out their destination nestled in the lea of the valley’s far side, the copious light gleaming from its golden walls like a beacon.

She felt her stomach drop.

There was no mistaking a Goa’uld stronghold; it erupted from its bucolic surroundings like a canker, out of place, angular and radiating all the conceit typical of its architect.

Nothing moved over the open land that stretched some distance in all directions, the stillness broken only by some far off creature howling a lament into the night. Already chilled to the bone as she was, the shiver of unease that prickled Vala’s skin was almost lost to her.

A casual shove persuaded her to continue down the incline and she relied on her feet to find their own way, her thoughts whirring.

She hadn’t anticipated this. She’d not sensed the presence of a symbiote among her travelling companions, although that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

They were certainly an odd collection of specimens; each of the seven men that made up her entourage wore an eclectic patchwork of repurposed leather armour, mismatching clothing and an intriguing selection of weaponry, from blades to more sophisticated arms. Most had seen better days. A good proportion looked less than reliable. Not that she intended to test her theory. And despite appearances, the men were certainly organised, trading positions regularly and responding with almost military precision to the directions of their aesthetically-challenged leader. 

As she negotiated her way across the rain-sodden slope, she pushed back the hood of her waterproof and spared a glance behind her. Daniel was being traded off to a fresh pair of shoulders and two bulky sacks of mysterious content were redistributed among the group. Loot of some kind? But from where? She unintentionally caught the disapproving eye of their rear guard and hastened to bring her attention back to her path.

Daniel was once again a limp weight, having stirred only once since their last rest stop. Vala was worried but also grateful; the slightest of struggling had been rewarded with cruel blows and, at one point, a dangerously careless drop and a lengthy argument between less than enthusiastic cargo hauliers. They hadn’t resorted to dragging him behind them as yet, or (heaven forbid) simply shooting him and leaving him behind, but Vala could sense their tolerance waning.

She knew better than to complain; her initial attempts at questioning, bargaining and ingratiating chatter had quickly earned her the threat of a violent gagging and extracted little valuable information.

The planet’s heavy gravity pulled at her every step, the unnatural, greedy weight a tangible presence she could feel in her bones. Loosened soil sloughed easily from the slope under the pressure of her tread, the menace of a swift and unpleasant fall in the sound of every scattering of scree. She briefly entertained the idea of a controlled slide, imagining in vivid detail the breathy liberation of adrenaline and momentum, the chaos of clattering rocks and slipping soil cloaking a desperate dash for freedom. A claw-like hand wrapped itself in a rigid vice just above her elbow, spoiling an incipient tumble and her short-lived fantasy. She caught her balance and was once again propelled forward, a parting gift of sneering derision accompanying the finger pad bruises pushed deep into her flesh. 

Her entourage urged her to pick up the pace as they neared the midpoint of their descent. The party swung its course to follow parallel with the ridge, and Vala felt a cold flood of realisation wash over her; they were sticking to the cover of the tree line. Far from making a direct path for the vast meadow and the building in the distance beyond, the group skirted the flood plain and put their backs to the building.

Vala studied the silent men flanking her. She had noticed that what little chatter there had been between them had dried up some time ago. They were what Cam would have called ‘twitchy’, eyes scanning their surroundings and darting to catalogue every snap of branch and twig.

Feeling uneasy, she peered more carefully across the grassy expanse to their right. There were features her eyes had skipped over previously in favour of that opulent structure. The distant ground closest to the stronghold’s walls appeared pocked, perhaps with craters, and indistinguishable lumps only visible in the twilight as fractionally deeper shadow were scattered around its immediate approach. The faint smell of burning reached her nostrils on a slight stirring of air, along with something more noxious.

The unmistakable tang of decay lingered here.

After some time their path cut into an area of denser brush and she soon lost sight of the rippling grassland through the verdant foliage. Clusters of wet leaves slapped unpleasantly across her face and she soon found herself fighting her way through tangles of sharp briar.

The man on point brought them to a silent halt some way into the thicket and she looked about nervously, the atmosphere a collectively held breath that infected even her with tense anticipation. The ugly one gave a short, three-note whistle and waited. Almost immediately, the combination of sounds was repeated from a short distance away, and one of their party broke off to approach the source. When he returned, Vala was once more prodded into movement.

She emerged into a small clearing taken up almost entirely by the remains of a stripped Al’kesh. It was rusting away quietly in the dirt, gaping holes in its carcass exposing the bones of its structure to the night air. If the gouged earth describing a telltale trail into the nearby scrub was anything to go by, its landing had not been a soft one. Nor recent. There didn’t appear to be any other craft in sight, and Vala very much doubted the ship would see flight again.

Two guards stepped from hidden positions inside the ship and, as they passed, exchanged quiet words with the group’s leader that Vala couldn’t quite make out. Ahead, the man on point stooped to clear fallen leaves from a patch of unremarkable ground, pushing the resultant mess into a pile with the side of his boot.

Vala craned her neck curiously as the man bent and heaved a sheet of metal upright, revealing a queue of rungs of dubious integrity that disappeared down into the earth. Without so much as a backward glance, the man propped the trapdoor open and leapt into the hatch with the ease of much practice. After a moment a warm glow of light emanated from the hole.

A clip to the back of her head persuaded Vala that she was meant to follow.

So. A secret entrance. Perhaps they were headed to the stronghold after all. Interesting.

As she placed her foot on the first creaking rung, it registered with Vala in a sick wave that no one had felt the compulsion to blindfold her.

\---

The trek through the tunnel was long and tiring. By the time they reached its end, Vala was muddied and exhausted, and more than a little apprehensive. Exiting the tunnel required an elaborate ritual involving a long pole, some sort of morse code and the lowering of various winches and rope ladders.

She watched as the group’s cargo disappeared over the lip of the hatch above her, followed by Daniel’s unresponsive bulk.

“You next,” her laconic personal guard instructed.

She kicked out with a cry when meaty hands wrapped around her hips and she was boosted upwards with frightening speed. She flailed her arms and her wrists were captured in a firm grip. With a gratuitous press of hands to her behind, she was hauled through the opening with embarrassing efficiency.  

The men around her grinned and leered at her, and a selection of choice comments lined up along her tongue. She settled for an indignant “well that was unnecessary” and brushed at her clothing with all the decorum she could manage.

The ornate and golden walls of the corridor she had emerged into were almost dazzling after the darkness of the tunnel below, but not altogether unexpected. She watched surreptitiously as greetings were exchanged between the returning party and the guards manning the unconventional entrance. Backs were slapped and shoulders clenched, the returning of brothers in arms from a dangerous mission. She felt uncomfortable under the questioning scrutiny of this strange welcoming committee, a confusing mix of appreciative appraisal and hostile caution.

The brusque display was interrupted by a shout of warning that echoed along the corridor, followed soon after by the muted thud of a nearby explosion. The floor moved beneath her feet and Vala reached for the wall to steady herself, a fine dusting of pulverised masonry coating her.

The unburdened men of their group launched into action, heading at a loping run towards the source of the impact. Calls of alarm, drumming footsteps and clacking weaponry sounded from intersections further along the corridor. Another group of men almost knocked Vala down as they sprinted past her, rounding a corner with a controlled skid.

“What’s going on?” Vala called towards their departing backs.

“With me,” her captor ordered his remaining men, wrapping a hand around Vala’s forearm to tug her along in his wake.

They dodged hurrying men at every turn, all hallways a hive of frantic activity. Vala’s eyes scoured the architecture for signs of its Goa’uld builder. The place had been stripped of identifying features. She didn’t recognise the decorative style.

As they passed deeper into the building, it became clear that much of the complex was badly damaged. The pattern of destruction was vaguely familiar; holes eaten away in otherwise smooth metal cladding, unusual patterns of corrosion, and wires dangling listlessly from wall panels like spilled innards. Debris had been cleared haphazardly to the sides of more well-worn routes and footsteps that would have rung grandiosely were muffled by accumulated dirt, stacked storage containers and piles of scavenged detritus.

At one point her foot connected with a small piece of metal and sent it tinkling into the shadows. She frowned at the familiar sound. 

Half of her party peeled off at an intersection and slung their sacks to the ground with a heavy _thunk_. Vala held back long enough to catch a glimpse of zats and other miscellaneous weaponry spilling across the floor before she was herded onwards, a painful yank to her arm reminding her to keep her eyes forward.

She was finally propelled into a small control room, staggering until a console brought her momentum to a painful stop. Her handler jerked his head and the man carrying Daniel set his burden down on the floor.

Vala eyed her captor warily. He stalked towards her and circled the console, a predator toying with its prey. Vala was unimpressed. She strove to appear cowed and kept her eyes lowered.

“You will make this operational.”

Vala let her eyes rove over the console and its exposed panel of crystals, establishing almost immediately that it was likely to be of little strategic use to her. “What is it?”

“You tell me, little mechanic. I have heard great things of the infamous SG-1.”

Vala looked again, more closely this time. A test, surely? This was straightforward Goa’uld tech. Not something a Goa’uld would need _her_ to mend. Or rather, her admittedly more technology-savvy compatriot.

She studied the crystal array before her. It was similar to field generator technology. A force shield? She let her palm rest over a depression in the control panel and a holographic readout sprang into being. She made a show of scanning the scrolling lettering and gave a dramatic shrug.

“As I thought,” she sighed, and shook her head sadly.

The man’s eyes narrowed.

She allowed the pause to stretch. “I can’t read it.”

“You are here to work, not to read.”

“Ah yes,” she replied, “but you know what they say about always reading the instructions. I wouldn’t want to, say, blow us all into a million vaporised pieces by pressing the wrong button.”

The man’s expression darkened dangerously, and she rallied her final gambit.

“But not to worry. He can help me.” She jerked her chin towards Daniel’s prone form and her captor followed her look. He eyed her for a moment, considering his options.

Vala held out her hand and wriggled her fingers.

With deliberate slowness, the man withdrew the healing device from the fold of his outerwear, his eyes locked with Vala’s. He held the device out in the air in front of him, not quite closing the distance, and waited.

Vala felt an uncomfortable prickle travel over the back of her neck. She smiled cautiously and reached out to take the proffered device, but he would not release his hold. The man’s scrutiny didn’t waver, a myriad of sentiments, none of them pleasant, communicated in that heated exchange.

“Um,” she began hesitantly, giving the device a gentle tug. “Can I have it?”

He made her wait several more excruciating seconds before releasing his grip, and she forced herself to murmur a resentful “thank you”.

She was wary of turning her back on him, yet anxious to start should he change his mind. She dropped to her knees at Daniel’s side and took several deep breaths, marshalling her reserves. She was exhausted and strung out, and she didn’t know how long she would be allowed to do this. She needed to focus as much of the device’s power as she could in a relatively short space of time. Dangerous, but doable.

Daniel lay pale and unmoving where he’d been placed, his skin cold and clammy to the touch. With trembling fingers she peeled back the makeshift dressing over the ugly wound at his temple. It was gummy with partially congealed blood. The whole left side of his head was a sticky, rusty mess, his hair matted and stiff and red.

She closed her eyes and tried to block out the looming presence of her captor, his loud breathing and sour smell at her shoulder.

Fitting her hand into the strap, she raised her arm and began. The familiar sensation of warm energy gathering in her chest and flowing down her arm was entirely psychological, she knew. She couldn’t actually feel this. There was no real transfer of energy from wielder to recipient. A combination of the naquadah in her blood and the bioelectric signals between the synapses of her brain triggered the mechanisms in the device, the strength of her will amplifying the latent functionality by degrees. But to her it would always feel like a more physical, tangible process, like a giving and taking of life force that she could sense with every fibre of her body. The effort it required was very real either way, and she fought to concentrate her mind as the golden glow spread and pulsed.

She prayed she was strong enough for this. She prayed it would be enough.

He was bad. As she had feared, her earlier efforts had not been enough. He had rallied briefly, but he’d needed more to stem the inevitable lapse in condition. She wasn’t too late. She could do this.

She parsed the feedback returning to her, teasing apart the nebulous streams of information and allowing them to guide her effort. Using her mind’s eye to map the delicate threads of data, she directed the current to where it was needed most, focussing on the deeper damage, repairing the crucial systems, relieving pressure, knitting fractured bone, sealing broken capillaries.

With each passing moment she could imagine herself pushing back death, beating it into submission and sweeping it aside. Serious trauma was reversing towards injury, the eventually fatal to the survivable, the critical to the treatable.

Vitals were levelling out.

It was working. 

She opened her eyes and watched as the split along Daniel’s hairline began to pull together, the sluggish bleeding drying up and the skin smoothing out. Cosmetic, perhaps, but the sign she was looking for to confirm that the healing was progressing. Now if she could just concentrate a little harder on the worst of it, she was certain she could--

A savage blow knocked the healing device from her hand and sent it clattering across the enamelled floor.

“Enough,” her captor purred sweetly, his hot breath blasting across her ear.

Vala shuddered and cradled her throbbing fist to her chest. She bit down on a frustrated curse as she was jerked back forcefully by her hair.

“You. Get up.”

She leaned round in time to see Daniel blinking dazedly at the hand fisted in his collar, a brutal shaking threatening to snap his neck for him.

“Just give him a minute,” Vala entreated as she attempted to intervene. She was knocked back, hitting the ground again with bruising force.

“I said,” the man growled, his face thrust towards Daniel’s own, “Get. Up.”

He didn’t wait for a reply. He hauled Daniel up by his jacket and slammed him into the wall. Vala scrambled to her feet and jumped to his side.

“Let me help him. Please.”

The room shook with another tremor, knocking loose a cloud of dust and a pelting of ceiling fragments. From somewhere in the complex outside, someone blew a whistle.

The man curled his lip and released Daniel with a disgusted sneer. Vala planted her feet to catch some of his weight, gasping when rather more than she had anticipated bore down on her shoulder.

Their captor strode to the doorway and looked out, consulting with passing runners and barking orders to others. He turned back briefly to thrust an impatient finger at the console, and Vala took the hint.

“As much as I appreciate the effort, Daniel,” she grunted as she struggled to stand fully upright, “it’s at times like these that you could do with being a bit less unwieldy.”

“S-sorry,” he managed to slur, although Vala expected he wasn’t quite clear on what he was apologising for.

“Listen, think you can help me? You’re far too heavy to drag all the way across the room by myself. Come on, up and Adam.”

“At ‘em,” he corrected automatically, his eyes screwed tightly shut as Vala moved them both away from the support of the wall.

“Pardon?” she asked as she steadied him.

“It’s up and at ‘em. You said it…” He paused a moment and swallowed thickly. “You said it wrong,” he finished faintly.

With some wavering that reminded Vala of a colourful movie she’d watched once about an ice-skating deer, they made it up onto the raised platform and next to the console. She propped Daniel against it and he clutched the panel’s lip with a white-knuckled grip.

Sparing a furtive glance for their distracted captor, Vala began manipulating the controls until ethereal glyphs scrolled brightly across the display’s curved surface. She needed something that would look good. Preferably something flashing in a bright, warning red. Selecting the screen she wanted, she turned her head to speak loudly over her shoulder.

“It’s a good thing I’ve got the team linguist with me, let me tell you. Give me complicated and long-winded mathematical equations any day; none of this means the first thing to me!” The man approached, presumably to menace her, and she waved a dismissive hand at the readout screen with a self-depreciating facial shrug.

Next to her, Daniel frowned at her deeply. “Whuh? Val--“

“Now darling,” Vala hastened to interrupt, “you’ve taken quite a knock to the head. It’s understandable you’re confused. Try not to overtax yourself.” She petted the undamaged side of his head with solicitous condescension and rolled apologetic eyes at their captor.

“Fix it,” the man commanded, unamused. “Now.”

Vala nodded and turned to her weaving teammate. “I need your help now, Dr Jackson,” she explained slowly, trying to impart as much of her plan as she could through her earnest gaze. “Can you translate this section of text for me?”

She pointed to a block of lettering and Daniel peered myopically towards where she indicated.

“But…? W-wait. You can re-- ah!”

Vala promised herself she would apologise for that vicious pinch later.

“Please,” she implored, her eyes as full of meaning as she could make them.

Daniel squinted at her in open-mouthed confusion for a moment longer but turned to do as she’d asked.

Her captor watched her carefully as she crouched to work on the crystal array, being sure to time her movements to the instructions Daniel haltingly read out above her. The problem was actually quite a simple one to overcome, but she made a show of examining the inner circuitry, swapping some extraneous crystals over and pulling experimentally on the wiring.

“Ah ha!” she finally announced. “Here we are.”

She clipped the loose coupling back into place with a triumphant flourish and smiled up at her captor. It faded when the expected hum of energy failed to materialise.

“Hold on.” She gave the base of the console a swift kick. Blinking lights flickered on and crystals lit up obediently, the device whirring into life. She dusted her hands off theatrically. “There.”

Another distant explosion echoed through the building, but this time the pattering of debris was conspicuously absent. Vala glanced at the display to confirm what she had already guessed: an energy field was now being generated somewhere nearby, and if she was interpreting the readings correctly, it was holding up to some fairly sustained bombardment.

Her captor approached her, an ugly smirk across his twisted face. “Little mechanic,” he purred almost lovingly, his calloused hand sweeping approvingly over her cheek.

“Anton”, someone called breathlessly from the hallway. A messenger appeared in the doorway, a trickle of bright blood running down his face. “Sellon would see you now.”

\---

Vala’s knees impacted the marble of the throne room floor with bone-jarring twin thumps. She generally wasn’t a fan of genuflection, particularly when she wasn’t the one on the receiving end of it.

Any banners or icons pertaining to the previous occupier had long since been removed, and even the more subtle nuances of ownership were hard to place. Vala noted with wry amusement that the new tenants had been unable to completely eliminate all sense of the elaborate, the ostentatious and the vulgar from the room; the monstrous chair dominating the dais before her drew all attention to it. Qetesh’s penchant had been for the severe. The contemptible little worm would have scoffed at the pomp in evidence here.

Daniel crumpled into position next to her and she turned to offer him a reassuring nudge. He was still pale but looked slightly less like he might collapse. He met her eyes and gave her a wan smile.

“How are you feeling?” she whispered, aware of the escorts standing at her back.

Daniel closed his eyes and took a slow breath. “Like I might throw up. But better.”

“You can thank me later,” she told him. 

Their ugly friend was almost unrecognisable in this new setting, his aggressive demeanour replaced by an oily obsequiousness that set Vala’s teeth on edge. He was fawning to a man Vala hadn’t seen before. Presumably this was Sellon, master of all he surveyed. He had a self-possessed dignity about him that his subordinate lacked, and for all his obvious power appeared careworn and harassed. Far from finery or ornamentation, he was dressed much as his men, his garments twice mended and dirty. It was his regal air that radiated command and leadership, and if Vala was reading him right, he didn’t appear to like Anton very much at all.  

Daniel shifted next to her with a wince, trying and failing to find a comfortable way to kneel. He leaned towards her conspiratorially. “Um, not to sound ungrateful or anything, but why is there grovelling?”

“Relax, Daniel. I’m handling it.”

“Huh. Is _that_ what this is?”

The jab of plated toecaps reminded them both that silence was expected.

Sellon stepped slowly from the platform, Anton following eagerly in his wake. He circled his petitioners leisurely, coming to a stop before Vala.  He crouched and reached out a hand to gently tuck her hair behind her ear. He said nothing for a long moment and held her gaze. Vala tried an innocent smile. The man’s expression hardened, and Vala felt her face drop.

“Who are you?”

She contorted her features into a look of bafflement. “I’m sorry, what?” The hand still curled in the hair by her ear tightened painfully. She winced. “Ow.”

Sellon stood and released her, turning to remount the dias. “This is not Major Carter of SG-1. _Colonel_ Carter is clearly still at large.”

Anton swung her a murderous glare before hurrying to catch up with his commander. “But, the shielding!”

“A fluke, perhaps. We will need far more than that if we are to withstand a barrage from fresh forces, as you well know. We can spare no more resources to pursue this plan of yours. It had merit, but now it is time to reassess.”

Enraged and humiliated, Anton stormed from the platform and struck Vala a ringing backhand. Her lip reopened and flooded her mouth with iron, but she managed to remain upright. She straightened and faced her attacker. He towered over her, red-faced and nostrils flaring. She blew him a jaunty kiss.

He brought his arm back for another swing. Daniel’s protest was overridden by an unspoken order from the commander, and the guard behind Vala stepped forward to intercede.

“She can operate the technology, yes?” Sellon enquired from his position by the throne.

“Yes, I can.”

“Vala,” Daniel warned.

The commander flicked his eyes at their escorts and they were forced to stand.

“Then we may have use for you yet,” he said.


	4. Chapter 4

Vala stretched her arm as far as it would reach, the side of her face crushed against the unyielding metal of the cell door. Her shoulder screeched a protest. Turning her upper body slightly allowed her to extend that tiny bit further. A cord in her neck tweaked a warning and her lips skinned back from her teeth.

“I think I just put my hand in something,” Daniel said.

The very tips of her fingers just brushed a raised edge of some kind, but she couldn’t hook them around it or find any purchase. She very much doubted she was anywhere near to reaching the coding panel for the door lock, but even the semblance of victory would have been welcomed.

“It’s squishy,” Daniel continued from his place on the floor.

There were no other features to be felt on the door’s other side. It was a single rough panel. There was no handle. She blew out her breath in annoyance and withdrew her arm.

“Ew,” Daniel muttered behind her.

She tried once more to peer through the infuriatingly narrow slot. She couldn’t quite angle her head enough to see more than a few feet down the corridor leading away from the cell, and even if she could, she suspected the sputtering torch their guards had left wouldn’t have been sufficient to penetrate the deep shadows at its end. She rubbed at her strained shoulder.

“I take it we’re not dealing with a Goa’uld here,” Daniel hazarded, wiping his hand off on his pants.

“Nope,” she confirmed.

“So who are these guys? Old buddies of yours?”

“Never met them in my life.” She shook out her hand with a grimace. She’d definitely pulled a muscle.

“They didn’t recognise you from somewhere? Thought you were Qetesh or something?”

She thought for a moment. “Apparently not. Which is kind of disappointing. I mean, I was pretty notorious--“

“Vala.”

“No, they didn’t recognise me. They knew who _you_ were, though. Or at least the toad-faced one guessed.”

Daniel winced and fingered the tender spot on his head. “Yeah. That seemed to go well.”

“Mmm. Twice, if I remember correctly. Not everyone appreciates your rare talents quite as much as I do, darling.”

Daniel shot her an inscrutable look. “So why did he take us? Why not just shoot us and leave us there?” He narrowed his eyes slightly. “And why was he so keen on _you_?”

Vala twisted a long strand of hair around her finger, then began swinging her torso from side to side for good measure. “I might have… sort have… told him I was Sam.”

“You did _what_?”

“Well to be fair, he came to that conclusion all by himself. I just didn’t… correct him.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“Hey! I’ll have you know I’m pretty handy around Goa’uld tech, thank you. And a good thing too. He said he’d let us go if I did a quick bit of tinkering for them. How was I supposed to know the little toad would go back on his word?”

“Uh huh,” Daniel said, less than convinced. “He actually said that? That he would let us go if we helped them?”

Vala paused to consider, her mouth working silently for a moment. “I may be paraphrasing. A little.”

“You’re lucky they didn’t kill us both. You can’t lie like that and hope to get away with it when they find you out.”

“ _Lie_ is a bit of a strong word,” she grumbled petulantly. “And we’d both be dead a lot sooner if I hadn’t played along. Once the ugly one had our weapons he lost interest in you pretty quickly. Without an angle we were worthless to him.”

“And now you’re worth too much,” Daniel countered. “They’re never going to let such a valuable asset go now they know what you can do. That guy was practically salivating.”

“Well what was I supposed to do? They were going to _kill_ you. They still might. I’ve bought us some time. The others won’t just leave us here.” She was absolutely not going to entertain any other possible scenarios.

Daniel began circular rubbing motions on his temples, eyes closed against what must have been a sizeable headache. “They don’t even know where here is. They could be captured themselves for all we know.”

“I do so enjoy it when you’re positive, Daniel. It really lifts a girl’s mood.”

He dropped his hands and glared at the ceiling. “It’s called realism. Even if by some miracle they made it back through the ‘gate, it’s SGC policy not to get involved in other people’s wars. Trust me, it’s ended badly for us in the past. If it’s the war zone it sounds like out there then there’s no way Landry’s going to commit resources -- risk _lives_ \-- wading through that to search a planet he’s not even sure we’re still on. You said you thought it was a couple of day’s walk from where we were picked up. We’re probably missing presumed dead by now.”

Vala couldn’t be sure, because she had a feeling they’d been taken on an indirect route to their destination, and things had admittedly been a little fraught at the time, plus she wasn’t sure how far they’d made it from the ambush at the ‘gate before they’d finally been captured, but yes. They were a long way from home.

He was in pain. She would not allow his knee-jerk defeatism to take root in her too. He’d snap out of it. 

“Okay, so it’s up to us then. Not like we haven’t been in a position like this before.”

Daniel looked over at her and raised a sceptical eyebrow.

“Alright,” she conceded, “maybe not _exactly_ like this, but you know what I mean. Oh, and Teal’c called. He wants his idiosyncrasies back.”

“Indeed.”

“Funny.”

“Talk to me when you’re recovering from a serious head injury.”

Vala stretched a foot out to nudge him in the leg. “Look, maybe all we need to do is wait this thing out. From what I saw up there, these people are in some serious do-do. They’re losing. Badly. A couple of weeks from now, I’d be surprised if they’re still standing.”

“And this is a good thing for us, how?”

Vala began ticking off her fingers. “Their numbers start to dwindle. Standards start to slip. They get sloppy. An opening offers itself and we grab it. We’ve just got to wait them out and be ready to take advantage of the situation. I’m good at this sort of stuff. I know what I’m doing.”

“Hmm. And if they lock us down here and forget about us while they’re too busy fighting for their lives?”

“It won’t come to that. Like you said, they need me. And I’m not exactly easy to forget.” She flashed him a megawatt smile that glinted in the almost darkness.  

Daniel couldn’t help but smile back wryly. Vala wondered if he was holding back from voicing his worst fears for her sake, fears that she was certain she shared: that Sam, Teal’c and Cam were dead; that this war may be nowhere near its end; that if the opposing side looked to be anywhere near achieving victory, their captors were likely to execute them before letting them fall into enemy hands.

She watched as he turned his attention back to a small metallic object in his hands, running his fingers absently over its grooves and notches. Vala plumped down beside him and poked him with her elbow.

“What is it?”

“A little something I picked up earlier.”

Vala took the cold piece of metal he held out to her and turned it over in her hands. “You couldn’t have grabbed for something a tad more useful?”

“It’s a replicator block. Inert, thankfully.”

“You think that’s what all the fuss was about before? I noticed the place looked a little… gnawed on.” The little ingot made a pleasing ringing sound when Vala used her thumbnail to flip it end over end. She caught it again with a theatrical mid-air snatch.

“I doubt it. The replicators were in the middle of a full-scale attack on the Goa’uld when they were, ah, destroyed. Just think of all the ships and palaces out there they would have been on the verge of consuming.”

Vala nodded thoughtfully. “And then _poof_. They scatter into piles of wincey pieces, leaving behind vast complexes like this one, conveniently cleared of Goa’uld and Jaffa and ripe for the plundering.”

“Precisely.”

Vala thought of the downed Al’kesh they had passed on their way here and wondered if mechanical insects could pilot a ship with such precision. “So who’s that knocking on the door?”

“My guess? A neighbouring group of warlords. We’ve stumbled into a turf war.”

“And I’d say we’re on the side of the underdogs,” Vala concluded.

Daniel nodded to himself. “They’re under siege. They’re desperate. They’re looking for an advantage. Of any kind.”

“And along we come.”

“Right. Which I still don’t understand. This is not P4X-235.”

“Maybe one of those poor, underappreciated ‘gate minions dialled it wrong,” Vala suggested. “No one’s infallible, you know.”

Daniel spared her an amused look and continued. “I’m not sure. The MALP got through to the correct destination, but we ended up here. Why?”

It was something Vala had pondered during the arduous trek here, in between drafting a letter of complaint in her head to the waterproof manufacturers that had clearly never field tested their products through two days of almost constant rain.

“Is this one of your rhetorical questions? Because I don’t know the answer and I don’t see how we’re going to work it out from in here.” She pulled the front of her shirt away from her body, sniffed it, and wrinkled her nose. “They could at least have let us change into some dry clothes. I’m soaked.”

“It’s not exactly dry in here,” Daniel shrugged, “so I’m not sure what good it would have done us. The complex must extend some way into the hillside.”

The thought of tons of rock bearing down on them from the other side of the cell wall made Vala shudder.

“Don’t suppose you’ve got any food hidden in those pockets of yours?” she asked, not at all hopeful.

“Sorry.”

“Think they’ll feed us?”

“I hope so.”

“I’m pretty thirsty,” she admitted.

“Me too,” Daniel agreed.

“And tired.” She shivered again.

“Maybe you should try to get some sleep. Lie down.”

“In _this_? No thank you.”

Daniel shifted slightly and stretched his legs out in front of him. “Here. Lean on me.”

Shuffling round, Vala aligned herself, and with a good amount of fidgeting and a few muttered complaints, relaxed into a semi-reclined position across Daniel’s legs. A few minutes of silence passed and she closed her eyes, surprised at how quickly she could feel sleep stealing upon her.

“Daniel?”

“Hmm?”

“We’re going to be okay,” she told him, an assurance for herself as much as for him.

“We’re going to be okay,” he repeated, both of them complicit in the lie.

\---

Banging her fists on the door produced muted thuds rather than the resonating clangs she was after, and only served to fuel Vala’s impotent anger.

“Hello! I know you can hear me!”

“I’m sure they’re wishing they couldn’t,” Daniel muttered from his place along the wall.

Vala ignored him. She gave the door a rattle by levering all her weight from it, the hatch as her only handhold. “You can’t just leave us down here! We have rights, you know!”

“Uh, Vala…”

“What?” she demanded. “If they think I’m just going to sit here quietly while they lord it about up there in their comfy palace, they’ve got another thing coming. I’m dirty, I’m hungry, I’m stuck in this damp pit of a place with only _you_ for company--“

“Gee, thanks.”

“--and don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re pretty ripe--”

“You’re no bed of roses yourself.”

“--and I think I’ve at least earned a pile of straw or _something--“_ She turned back to the hatch and increased the volume of her shout. “--after _all the help I gave them_!”

When it became apparent that no one was coming, she aimed a final screech of frustration through the opening and pounded her fist once against the unyielding surface. The cool metal was sweating in the steamy conditions. She allowed her forehead to rest against it.

“I’m sure they’ll be right out with that cot,” Daniel quipped flatly.

Vala whirled on him. “Well at least I’m _trying_ something.”

“Save your energy.” He dropped his head forward, his hands squeezing and releasing the back of his neck.

Vala noted he had yet to move away from the support of the wall, not that they were blessed with many options for seating arrangements. She acquiesced to his lingering headache somewhat gracelessly by allowing her back to slide down the cell door, her rump hitting the floor with a thump. The torch outside was guttering in its wall sconce. They would soon be plunged into complete darkness.

“I’m going to go crazy,” she told the frighteningly tiny room, and for perhaps the first time in her life, worried that she actually might mean it.

Daniel didn’t bother to look up when he replied. “It’s only been a day.”

“A day _and_ a night. We _think_. And may I remind you that they’ve yet to feed or water us, let alone check on our wellbeing. We could have died down here for all they know.”

“The dead don’t usually make such a racket.”

“Yes, well.” She sniffed haughtily. “You’re being awfully snippy with me. I wouldn’t be in this mess at all if I hadn’t had to cover for you. A little gratitude wouldn’t go amiss.” She tossed her hair back over one shoulder, a challenge in the jut of her chin.

Daniel raised his head and looked at her, long and hard. It was difficult to make out his expression in the low and flickering light that barely permeated the small space between them, but Vala began to feel acutely uncomfortable under that measured gaze.

His voice was surprisingly gentle when he finally spoke. “I know you’re bored, and frustrated, and frightened--“

“I am _not_ \--“

“--but please, don’t pick a fight with me, okay? I’m worried too, and frankly, I don’t think I could win an argument with a paper bag just now.” 

“It’s been hours.”

“I know.”

“We need water.”

Daniel sighed, his voice quiet. “I know.”

Pulling her knees up to her chest, Vala hugged herself and tried to calm her thrumming nerves by sheer will alone. She would control this. She would adapt to her situation like she always did and make the best of it. She would not panic.

The dim light abruptly failed, and an embarrassingly loud breath caught in her throat. _Please, no. Not this as well._

“Come here,” Daniel offered immediately, and she tried not to scramble to his side too quickly. He allowed her to drape one of his arms over her shoulders and pulled her in close.

If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend the darkness was of her own making.

Almost.


	5. Chapter 5

Vala was jarred from sleep when a misaimed hand collided awkwardly with her face. She bolted upright in alarm and blinked. It wasn’t her eyes; it was still solidly black in the cell. She raked tangled hair from her face with her fingers.

“Ugh. Poke my eye out, why don’t you. Why did you do that?”

Daniel’s hand moved to her shoulder, firm and urgent. “Shh. What’s that?”

Vala cocked her head and listened. “Not your apology, that’s for sure.”

“Someone’s coming.” 

The muted echo of distant footsteps brought her to full alertness.

“Finally.” 

Arms out in front, she crabbed her way to the door of the cell and was gratified to make out the slow bloom of approaching light. The scuff of footsteps grew louder.

“Hey!” she called. “Down here! We need to talk to someone!”

The shadowy forms of two men eventually came into view. Vala wasn’t sure she recognised either of them, but it was hard to tell in the partial light and with much of their upper bodies obscured. One carried a torch and what was probably a weapon of some kind, the other had a wide container slung under his arm, its base propped on one hip. 

“Listen,” Vala began hurriedly, words rushing to her lips. “I think there’s been some mistake here. I’m sure you’re all very busy with your fighting and repairs and whatnot, but we’ve been left down here for quite a while now, and you didn’t leave us with any water or blankets or anything, and I think someone may have forgotten to come and get us. We’re supposed to be helping, you know, upstairs. So if you could just take us back to the people in charge, we’ll get right to work.”

There was no response from the other side of the door. Vala sensed Daniel moving into position behind her, perhaps anticipating a chance to move. What were they waiting for? Would they open the door? 

“Come on, boys,” she tried again. “Won’t you at least talk to me? What’s going on out there? Why are we being kept down here?” 

They ignored her questions. There were some rustling sounds, but Vala couldn’t see what they were doing. She startled back as something was pushed through the little hatch by her face. Whatever it was landed with a wet smack by her knees and was quickly followed by another object that bounced and rolled off into the cell. Then the men turned and walked away, taking the light with them.

“Hey, where are you going?” she called after them, a rising note of panic in her voice that she couldn’t quite conquer. “Come back! Please, we just want to talk to you!”

Her fingers sought the hatch again, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. They were leaving. They were leaving her here again. A nail broke under the force of her grip. 

She felt hands patting at her legs and around the floor to either side of her.

“Shit,” Daniel cursed under his breath as he snatched something up.

She forced her lungs to operate, although it was an effort to tear her eyes from the disappearing light. “What’s the matter?” she whispered. 

“I think it’s a water skin. Some of it’s spilled.”

Vala’s world narrowed to the implications of those few words, the men outside forgotten. She felt suddenly queasy and tentatively touched her fingers to the small puddle spreading towards her calf.

“Is it…” She swallowed. “Is there some left?”

“Yes. Here.”

Now that it came to it, she wasn’t sure she could drink and keep it down. She released a controlled breath and crushed her trembling hands together. “You first.”

She wished for at least the fiftieth time that she could actually see something, to see how much water they had, to see that Daniel was drinking his fair share, to see the expression on his face that went with his quietly exhaled “oh god” as he savoured the first drink they’d had in at least two days. Actually, while she was wishing for things… But no. She wasn’t playing that game. She’d promised herself. That way lay madness. 

“Where’s your hand?” Daniel groped for it, captured it and wrapped her fingers around the neck of the pouch. “Careful.”

“I’ve got it.” The water was tepid and foul and the most wonderful thing she had ever tasted. She slumped back against the door and let it run down her parched throat, soothing and exquisite and nowhere near enough. She imagined her insides as paper dry, the liquid sucked up and absorbed before it even hit her stomach. 

She instantly wanted some more.

Somewhere in front of her, Daniel was moving cautiously around the cell, searching. Her earlier investigation of their accommodations had revealed only a single feature of note: a shallow channel that ran down one side of the room. It terminated at a small culvert that disappeared into the base of the wall, just to the left of the door. They hadn’t needed to question its function. Vala really hoped Daniel wasn’t putting his hands anywhere near it.

“Found it,” he announced. “Oh. Yuck.”

“What is it?”

“Feels like some kind of bread. It, um, rolled in something.”

“Charming.”

She heard him return to his place by the wall and rap his knuckles on the crust of the loaf. It sounded dense and entirely unappetising. “I don’t think I could work up enough spit to eat this even if I wanted to,” he said.

“I’m not even hungry anymore,” Vala agreed, although that wasn’t entirely true.

“Probably a bad idea anyway,” Daniel murmured, almost to himself. “Eating will only dehydrate us further.”

Vala hefted the empty water skin in her palm and draped it optimistically over the bottom lip of the hatch. Perhaps when the men returned -- _when_ they returned, she repeated to herself sternly -- they would see it waiting for them there and refill it. 

“I’m going to take this as a good sign,” she offered. She was confident. She _was_.

Daniel said nothing.

“I mean, why bother feeding us unless they want to keep us alive, right?”

“Yeah,” Daniel agreed distractedly. She thought she could hear him spinning their bread loosely between his hands.

“You’re thinking.”

“Hmm.”

“Thinking something negative.”

He didn’t respond. He didn’t refute her statement either, she noticed.

“Well stop it.”

“It’s nothing,” Daniel said in a way that meant it definitely wasn’t nothing. It was something alright. Something he wasn’t going to share and that she didn’t need to hear. She wasn’t going to ask.

“Alright, what?” she asked.

Daniel hesitated in that manner of his that Vala found both infuriating and endearing in equal measure. If she could actually see his face, she was sure she’d recognise the furrow between his eyebrows, the thin line of his lips. She dreaded that look. She missed that look. She missed _any_ look.

“They’re building to something,” he said slowly, verbalising an emerging train of thought. “This is an initiation period.”

Vala waited for him to elaborate further, then prompted him to continue. “So…”

“So, they’re grinding us down. Depriving us of space, light, food and water. Keeping us guessing, uncomfortable. To make us more likely to cooperate when they need us to.”

She let that sink in for a moment. Okay, she could work with this. “Which suggests to me that they eventually plan to let us out, for whatever reason that may be. Which is a good thing. And they’ve let us stay together. That could work in our favour too, right?”

“Hmm.” His tone intimated that he gave their captors more credit than Vala dared to. For some reason that frightened her more than anything.

She resolved to detach herself from her situation and look at things objectively. Perhaps Daniel had the right idea: rationalising it took away some of its power. And knowing it had a purpose, that this wasn’t just random neglect for cruelty’s sake, kept things predictable. Predictable was something she could handle; it was the unknown that terrified her. 

While ominous, she found that Daniel’s statement actually comforted her somewhat. They weren’t really going to be left to die. They had hope. She could weather any hardship where there was hope.

When Daniel spoke next, it was with a hard edge borne of bitter experience. “We should make a decision. Now, before things go much further. We need to decide, how much do we want to resist them?”

“Resist them?” Vala repeated, confused. This wasn’t what she had expected. “What do you mean? Surely we should do whatever it takes to survive? Must you always be so bloody-mindedly cryptic?”

Daniel made a quiet chuffing sound that could have been laughter. “You sound just like Jack.”

“He’s an insightful man.”

The next sound was definitely a laugh.

“I’m serious,” he eventually continued, sobering. “Where do we draw the line? Think about it. First you’re fixing shields to help ward off attack. You’re aiding your captors to keep you prisoner, but you’re doing it for food and water, so you tell yourself it’s a fair trade, right? It’s worth it. Next they want access to a sealed cache of weapons they’ve discovered. You figure they’d find a way to get hold of them eventually, so you help them because you’re hungry, and they promise they’ll feed you. But then they want more. They want to make some integrated weapons systems operational that’ll let them kill vast numbers of their enemy -- an enemy we know nothing about, by the way -- or they find a lab with some promising looking biological weapons, or the potential for experimentation on enemy soldiers, or something capable of mass destruction. Do you help them then? For a drink of water? What about when they ask for ‘gate addresses to other worlds, or the codes to Earth? You’ve already crossed several lines, so what’s one more?” He seemed to run out of steam for a moment, perhaps appalled by the direction of his own thoughts. “All I’m saying is, we should prepare to make a stand. Because at some point, we’ll need to, and it will be easier to do it sooner rather than later.”

“You’re assuming we’re going to be here that long,” Vala observed quietly, not quite ready to face the full implications of his words. 

“I think we have to assume the worst. That way we can only be pleasantly surprised.”

Vala imagined Daniel striding up and down the briefing room at the SGC, or pacing restlessly about his office. It was easy to do; she’d witnessed it many times. He’d use his hands as much as his words during his impassioned speech, eloquent and intimidating in defence of his viewpoint. He was a principled man. He would not compromise his ethics, under duress or otherwise. Could she say the same for herself? She considered herself a pragmatist. A survivor. If there was a code of conduct she had always followed, it was to take what life gave her and turn it to her advantage. 

She could easily see herself starting out on that slippery slope, a flexible morality smoothing the way towards survival at any costs. It would be easy to convince herself, bit by tiny bit, that what she did was against her will and a necessary evil, when in fact she had a choice, right here and right now.

Daniel had been right before, all those many months ago, when she’d woken to a life empty of memory, laced with fear and a lonely sense of something missing; when she’d looked down the barrel of a gun at a stranger and instead seen a friend; when she’d remembered the life she’d been building and realised all at once that, unequivocally, it was what she’d wanted. 

She’d already made the decision to stop running. 

She'd decided to stop taking the easy way out when staying had promised to be the stonier road. She’d paid heavily for that decision, but she’d also reaped rewards. Was this any different? Was the prospect of pain and hardship, of standing by what was important in the face of almost certain reprisal, really any different from putting herself in the line of fire, from leaving herself vulnerable and taking a risk, all for the chance of a place to belong, of a life she could be proud of? 

She knew the answer. What they were really deciding here was to accept, on their own terms, that they may not get out of this alive. To control the manner of their own suffering by refusing to play the game. To face the worst of what their captors could inflict upon them before they became too weak not to break. 

She could be strong if he could. They would do this together.

Her voice was steady, her conviction absolute. “Then I say we keep it simple. We do nothing that helps them kill.”

She was almost certain she could feel Daniel’s sad smile in the darkness ahead of her, and she felt her throat constrict with some unnamed emotion.

“Okay,” he said simply.

“Okay,” she repeated with finality. “That’s settled then. We’ll help each other through this.” 

It was all so very easy when it came right down to it. 

“So,” she said brightly, breaking the solemn mood, and settled back to stretch out her legs. “Can I interest you in a game of catch?” 

\---

“Turn around.”

“Vala, it’s pitch black in here. I couldn’t see anything if I wanted to.”

“Turn. Around.”

Daniel sighed. “Fine. There. Go ahead.”

She waited for a moment, but heard nothing. “Are you actually turned?”

“You can’t even tell?”

“Daniel!”

“Yes, I promise. It’s not like I haven’t seen it all before anyway. You’re not usually so modest.”

“This is different.” Her clothing rustled. “And cover your ears.”

“Oh for--“

“I will _hurt_ you.”

“Okay, okay. Covering.”

“Have you done it?”

“I can’t hear you.”

“Hmph.”

\---

When the men came to feed them again, they once more ignored their prisoners’ appeals for information. Neither were they moved to provide an extra water skin, no matter how many times Vala explained the concept of one plus one equals two. 

She hovered just back from the door this time, nervously eyeing the hatch and hands raised in readiness. She caught their rations neatly and not a drop was lost.

The extra mouthfuls of water were heaven.

They were still too thirsty to face eating the bread, and decided to stay hungry.

\---

“No.”

“What do you mean ‘no’? You can’t just refuse to answer. That’s cheating.”

“Your questions are coercive. And ridiculous. That choice would never actually come up.”

“How do you know that? Stranger things have happened.” Vala tried for her best wheedling tone of voice. “I’ll tell you what _they_ said if you answer.”

“Wait a minute. You’ve played this with the others?”

“Of course. And they had no reservations giving me straight answers, I can tell you.”

“I’m still not going to answer.”

“It’s Cam, isn’t it?”

Daniel stayed quiet.

“Ah ha! I knew it.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“You didn’t need to. Your pause spoke loud and clear.” She allowed herself a smug smile. “You’re going to feel bad now. He chose Teal’c.”

Daniel couldn’t hide the intrigue from his voice. “He did? Huh.”

“Something about going around and coming around. He was rather mysterious about the whole thing.” 

“Well.” Daniel sounded strangely pleased.

“Okay okay, I’ve got another one. Who do you think _I_ would rather smack in the face? Sam or Dr Lam?”

“Vala!”

She huffed. “You’re no fun at all.” 

\---

Daniel gave in to her badgering and agreed to try the next time. Despite knowing it was an exercise in futility, he rephrased their questions in as many languages as he could think to try, but the result was the same: their visitors told them nothing.

They decided to spare a little water to soften the inside of their bread and choked down a stale and desperate meal. It sat like a stone in Vala’s stomach, but it was better than the painful emptiness. 

\---

They’d stopped bothering to take turns sleeping, instead retreating to the scant respite of slumber whenever they were physically capable. Which, as it turned out, was more frequently than Vala would have expected. It was a trend she was in no doubt would be exponential. Something would surely have to change.

It was becoming hard to rouse herself sometimes, and the men were almost at the door when she realised her mistake. She just made it in time to catch the pouch before it fell, and resolved to stay alert next time.

Her pleas for information again went unanswered. 

\---

Vala stayed silent the next time. And the time after that. It changed nothing, and the acceptance of the routine was almost a relief. 

\---

“How many does this make?”

“Nine.”

“Are you sure? Wasn’t it nine the last time?”

“No.”

“Feels fuller this time.”

“You say that every time.”

“Well this time it’s true.” Vala’s practised fingers found the neck of the water skin and raised it to her lips. 

It was her turn first. That she definitely remembered. 

\---

“What do you think they’re doing right now?” Vala asked wistfully, her back aching from her awkward sprawl across Daniel’s legs. It was too much trouble to move. 

“You asked me that yesterday,” Daniel’s tired voice answered, scratchy and hoarse.

“Did I?” she wondered dreamily. ”Well, stands to reason they’d be doing something different today then, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” he answered wearily, lacking even the energy to be irritable.

Vala hoped the others were thinking of them, whatever it was they were doing. 

\---

The eleventh time, they both slept through the drop. 

They screamed at each other for as long as their voices held out, but never decided on who was to blame.

\---

They stopped counting after that. Now when the silent water carriers came, it was all they could do to lift themselves from the floor to collect it.

\---

Vala dreamed.

They were powerful, lucid dreams, the kind she rarely had under other circumstances. She was reluctant to wake from them and sought them eagerly whenever she closed her eyes. The only ones she didn’t welcome were the visions of water, of running rivers and flowing fountains. They couldn’t slake her thirst no matter how openly she embraced them, and she resented her dream self for unfailingly seeking that quenching promise.

Tormented by thirst and weakened with hunger, it was almost too much effort to approach the door when the familiar sounds came again. Daniel dragged himself over, leaving Vala propped against the wall where she lay. If she canted her head, she could just make him out, backlit against the growing illumination.

Her head swam in anticipation of the water, her pulse throbbing painfully behind dry and swollen eyes. The empty skin was pulled from the hatch with a _thwap_ of leather on metal. What a sound. What a beautiful, beautiful sound.

But rather than return it, the men kept it. She heard the staccato impact of fingers punching buttons, and with a rusty scrape, the door ground slowly open.

Daniel shuffled backwards automatically as light flooded the room, and she struggled upright to join him at his side. They shielded their eyes in unison against the glare and squinted up at the two stooping figures silhouetted in the doorway.

“You,” one of them barked. He made some kind of gesture that was impossible to make out against the dazzling light.

“Uh,” Daniel began, having to stop and swallow to find his voice. He didn’t need it.

One of the men bent low and entered the cell, and a bruising grip snared Vala’s upper arm. Before it occurred to her to struggle, she was pulled forcefully towards the door, her knees catching painfully along every imperfection on the floor.

She felt Daniel lunge for her and wrap his hand in the fabric of her jacket before she was yanked from him. 

“Wait,” he rasped urgently, “where are you taking her? Don’t--”

The snap and buzz of some kind of charge cut him off abruptly, and Vala had time see him jerk back before the cell door clanged shut behind her. The second guard tucked the pain stick back into its belt holster as he moved to take up her other side, and together they dragged her bodily down the tunnel.

Vala thought she could just make out the sound of boots striking metal in anger before she was hauled from earshot.


	6. Chapter 6

Daniel wasn’t sure how much time had passed. It felt like an eternity and it felt like no time at all. There was only unrelenting thirst and a suffocating sensory deprivation. Nothing else was of any consequence.

He couldn’t think. Couldn’t move.

It was too hot, and his thirst was torture. 

When the door at his back slid open, it snagged on his clothing and he toppled sideways with it. He hadn’t even heard them coming. Too late now.

The shift from vertical to horizontal barely registered, and anyway, the floor was good. No need to get up again. He’d just rest for a little bit, that was all. He couldn’t feel his fingertips.

His pulse was fluttering in his neck, sweat pouring down his face. He couldn’t get enough air.

He felt sick, and like he might pass out.

Somewhere, someone was panting weakly.

His arms were floating, one at a time. There was a persistent tugging sensation and the sweep of fabric on skin. Someone was threading his hands through the sleeves of his jacket, undressing him. _How inappropriate_. 

He shut his eyes.

At some point, something cool and bulky lodged itself under each of his armpits. Then there was a cold trickling sensation over his scalp and through his hair. This was significant. Somehow. 

He drifted.

Water. He could smell it. Somewhere, there was water. 

He thought maybe that was Vala just by his shoulder. He could see her. He couldn’t remember why that was odd. She was wafting his jacket back and forth over him. Was she fanning him? He blinked rapidly and she stopped.

“Back with me?” she asked teasingly, leaning closer. He knew her well enough to hear the concern and relief beneath her words. “I have something for you if you sit up a bit.”

Easier said than done, but with her help he managed to prop his shoulders awkwardly against the wall. Then there was water, glorious and sublime and delicious, and everything else ceased to exist. 

He’d have drowned himself in it if she’d have let him, but all too soon she was cautioning patience, and he lay gasping in the aftermath of his desperate need.

“There’s more in a minute,” she assured him. “Don’t worry.” 

She removed the bunched up rolls of material from under his arms and rewet one of them, unfurling it and draping it around his neck. It felt wonderful. It pulled some of the heat from his scorching skin. 

He luxuriated in that cooling sensation for a while, and as strength and awareness began to return to him, she let him have more water.

“Better?” she asked.

He let a grateful blink of affirmative answer for him and continued just to breathe, in and out.

Vala shucked her damp t-shirt back over her head, tugging it down and flipping her hair out from the neck at the back. She caught him looking and threw him a saucy wink. He frowned. When had that happened? 

“I suppose this makes us even now, darling,” she said.

He let his eyes wander over the room and noticed several things. Firstly, there was light; the guards who’d returned Vala to the cell must have left a torch outside for them this time. Second, he appeared to have lost his boots. His socks were also missing. They lay haphazardly to one side, discarded in haste and forgotten. Lastly, Vala appeared to be in possession of two small containers, the contents of which were unknown. Where had they come from?

Vala followed his gaze and patted the objects proudly. “When you’ve finished swooning, I’ll show you,” she promised.

She certainly seemed chipper for someone who, not too long ago, had been teetering on the edge of heat exhaustion right along with him. He found that if he moved very slowly, he could plant his hands on the floor and inch himself upright that little bit more. It was the most effort he had been able to manage for some time, and not needing to lie right back down again felt like a significant achievement.

Vala seemed pleased by this development too and patted his knee in encouragement. Perhaps he had really scared her. She busied herself folding his jacket into a neat little parcel, then turned to line his boots against the wall. She didn’t seem concerned about drinking anything herself, and he suddenly feared he’d blindly monopolized their only supply.

“I had plenty outside,” Vala said, as if reading his expression. “They fed me too. Seems they need me up and about if I’m going to be of any use to them.”

Daniel felt a growing sense of alarm that must have shown on his face. What did that mean? What had she agreed to? Vala hurried to reassure him.

“It’s not what you think. Turns out they don’t want me for my brain after all.” She smiled wanly at his frown. “They had some sick men, and they don’t have anything even approaching a doctor. Apparently they’ve had this big stash of Goa’uld devices lying about with absolutely no hope of using any of them. Until now.”

The healing device. Of course. Daniel cleared his throat, determined to find his voice again. “That’s--“ He coughed. “That’s it?”

She nodded. “That’s it.”

Daniel searched her face for even the slightest hint of deception, for anything at all that might suggest she was shielding him from an unpleasant truth, but he could find nothing. She was being honest. He was sure.

“And look,” she continued quickly, eager to avoid acknowledging his obvious moment of doubt, “they let me bring this back for you.”

A rich and savoury aroma rose from the pot Vala brought around in front of her. The other must be where the water had come from. The mere thought of food made his gorge rise, and he blew out a controlled breath.

“There’s no rush,” Vala said, putting it to one side again. “When you’re ready. And we have water, lots of water. I think…” She trailed off, a false smile forced onto her lips. “I think we’re going to be okay.”

He wished he could believe her, but Daniel wasn’t so sure. He knew what this was, and he could see she knew it too. They were using him as leverage against her, and she was letting it work. He hoped she knew what she was doing.

He let his eyes slip closed again and rested his head back against the wall. He was already feeling a hundred times better and was beginning to realise just how close he’d been to danger. He wondered idly if their captors had been monitoring him, or if it had just been luck that Vala had been returned when she was. He rather suspected it was the latter, which wasn’t a particularly comforting thought. 

After some time, Vala nudged him to drink again, and he took the opportunity to study her in the flickering light. She sensed his eyes on her and produced a nervous smile for him. She was anticipating a lecture and trying to head him off. He wouldn’t be deterred.

“I’m not sure you should be helping them,” he began softly, hoping the tremor in his voice wasn’t as obvious to Vala as it sounded to him. As expected, she pulled back from him, defences slamming firmly in place.

“What do you mean?”

He waved a hand weakly in her direction. “With this… this… you know. Playing doctor. You’re giving them what they want.”

“I’m healing the sick. They’re _people_.”

A little thrill of indignant anger lent strength to his voice. “I know that! Don’t you think I know that? It just doesn't feel right. We’ve talked about this.”

“Yes, and we agreed not to help them kill. This is the opposite of that.” Vala crossed her arms in front of her, battle lines drawn.

“Is it? Isn’t it enabling them to continue to fight, to continue to kill more of their enemy and prolong the bloodshed? Not to mention giving them a reason to keep us here.”

Vala’s eyebrows rose. “Never did I think I’d see the day. The great Daniel Jackson, philanthropist, idealist, seeker of the common ground and peacemaker extraordinaire, counsels against forgiving thine enemy. I knew you could be hard when you wanted to be, but this seems a bit ruthless, even for you.”

“And you’re usually the one I’d count on to be practical. We need to find a way out of here, not play nursemaid to people who’d kill us as soon as look at us if we had nothing they wanted.”

“I’m doing this to survive, Daniel. To keep _you_ alive.”

“And all the good that’s going to do us if all we have to look forward to is a short lifetime rotting in this cell.”

Vala narrowed her eyes at him.

“What’s the real issue here?” she challenged. “Are you angry that I get to go out and you don’t? Are you projecting your frustrated sense of nobility onto me? Because we both know you’d do the exact same thing if you were in my position.”

He was losing ground. He could feel the argument slipping through his fingers. He marshalled his last salvo. “Okay. Okay. You’re probably right. I would. And what would you be saying to me? To get my priorities straight. To not let this place take over. To not _give in to their demands_.”

There was an awkward silence that made the skin between Daniel’s shoulder blades itch. She was right, of course. He’d no more ignore people in need than she would, but something in him couldn’t let this go, felt the futile need to be contrary, to play devil’s advocate, to capitulate to the selfish, frightened, _human_ part of him that wanted out of this place, like, yesterday. To defy their captors at all costs. 

It was a lost cause, but then he’d always been a champion of those. 

“I’m not going to let people die, Daniel.”

There was a steely finality in that statement that said _checkmate_. Her logic was simple, but indisputable. In other circumstances it would be his own, of which she was well aware.

He sighed, defeated. “I know.”

“They’re suffering. And I can stop it. I’m probably the only one who can.”

It slipped out before he could stop himself. “But for how long?”

Vala paused, perhaps sensing they’d reached the real crux of the matter. Her smile was sad, understanding gentling her words. “I can handle it. I’ll be fine.”

 _Can you?_ Daniel wanted to ask. _At what price? Can you promise me you won’t push yourself beyond your strength, let them use you up for a brutal war that’s not our own, for nothing? For me?_ He wasn’t sure why he couldn’t get the words out or allow himself to reach out to her. The way she was looking at him made it hard to meet her eyes. 

She took pity on him and settled herself against the wall beside him, effectively putting an end to the conversation. Daniel told himself he wasn’t at his best just now and that this slip was not one he would repeat. Vala would chalk it up as a victory, but he wouldn’t let her hold it against him. It hadn’t been a fair fight.

When he felt strong enough to sit unsupported, he accepted the oily stew from Vala with shaking hands, not at all sure he could manage it. Then when the scent reached him, he fell on it ravenously, bolting it down and barely tasting it.

It was only when he’d finished the whole thing that he realised Vala had removed his t-shirt at some point, and that he was naked from the waist up.

\---

They would come every couple of days to take Vala from the cell, and each time she returned she brought with her more rations. Daniel recovered some of his condition with regular meals and plenty of water, and Vala was kept well provisioned for her duties. Some days they would even be left with light in the corridor outside.

She would be gone for an hour or so each time, describing to Daniel on her return her ministrations to the sick. The confines of the complex, the unsanitary conditions and the poor diet had affected men their captors couldn’t afford to lose, and sickness ran rife among their ranks. From what Vala told him, Daniel began to think they were both better off isolated down in their cell.

“I overheard something today,” Vala confided several days in as he scooped the last remnants of softened root vegetables from the bottom of the pot with his fingers. She scuttled quickly to the door to peer through the hatch, but their guards had long left. Satisfied they were alone, she returned to his side.

“They send out raiding parties, like the one that brought us here,” she told him. “That’s how they replenish their provisions. It’s hit and miss, but it’s how they’ve kept going so long.”

Daniel considered this. So much for a timely end to the fighting.

Vala stretched out next to him. “One of them’s a ‘gate party. They have a way of hijacking passing matter streams. They cause a wormhole to redirect to their ‘gate, then ambush the unsuspecting travellers as they arrive. We didn’t dial wrong; they pulled us off course.”

“Which means the SGC has no way of knowing where we are.”

“Maybe not, but I think they’re trying. One of the men said they snared a metal creature they’d never seen before, but that it stopped moving when the ‘gate disengaged.”

“A MALP.”

Vala nodded. “I think so too.” 

The others were looking. Just having that confirmed was enough to bolster Daniel’s admittedly flagging spirits. 

“They’re starting to trust me,” Vala continued. “They’re not exactly leaving me alone, but they’re easily distracted and less clingy than they were at first. I had enough time to try to strike up a conversation with one of my patients until I realised he couldn’t understand me. I’ll try again with another one next time.”

“Be careful,” Daniel interjected, reluctant to dampen Vala’s hopeful enthusiasm yet needing to voice his unease. Hadn’t he been the one pushing for Vala to try something, to look for a way out? He pushed that thought away. “If you get caught…”

“Oh please, give me some credit. I’m not an idiot.”

“I just worry, that’s all.”

“I know, and it’s very sweet of you.”

Daniel snorted.

“But honestly,” she forged on, “I take my work very seriously. You happen to be sharing a cell with one of the foremost con artists of this galaxy, and if anyone can infiltrate this slap-dash operation with only charm and wit to their name, it’s yours truly.”

Daniel forced himself to relax, a small smile tugging at his mouth despite himself. “They haven’t a hope in hell,” he teased lightly, and Vala preened obligingly. “Just watch your back, okay? I happen to like water.”

“Hmph. Well, as pliant as you are half dead with heat stroke, you’re certainly not as much fun to trade verbal barbs with. It would get terribly boring here without your company, paltry though it is.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Really? I’m not sure I would if our positions were reversed, but it’s your prerogative, I suppose.”

Daniel felt his eyes crinkle in response to her infectious, irreverent humour. He nudged her in the side with his elbow, just hard enough to push her off balance.

“Hey!” she protested, thumping him in the shoulder. “Bully.”

“Baby.”

“Be nice,” she replied with mock-sulkiness, tucking herself in closer to his side. 

Daniel tried not to dwell on just how comforting it was to have her there.

\---

…twenty three. Twenty four. Twenty five. 

A bead of sweat rolled down the bridge of his nose and was snapped free with the force of the next dip and lift.

Twenty six. Twenty seven.

His muscles burned. The overheated air resisted every pull of his lungs with a syrupy lethargy.

Twenty eight. Twenty nine.

He wished he had a way to measure the time. His own protracted sense of timekeeping, that inner clock that admittedly had never been quite as keen as it should, would be unreliable in this place. The darkness, the monotony of this narrowed existence, his physical condition, the only distractions those in his own head… It would all conspire to skew his perception of time. To stretch it out, torturous as it was unquantifiable. He was never very good at waiting.

Thirty. Thirty one. Thirty two.

The fine tremble was beginning already. The onset of muscle fatigue shouldn’t be hitting him so soon. He should be worried.

Thirty three. Thirty four.

How long had she been gone? It had been several hours at least. It certainly felt that way. No point in getting worked up about it; there was nothing he could do. He was calm. He would just try to stop thinking about it. God, he was thirsty.

Thirty five. Thirty six.

Maybe he shouldn’t be doing this. It had seemed like such a good idea before. A bit of stretching to ease the ache of the constant crouch, the hunch of shoulders, the repositioning of limbs curled against the unforgiving floor. If he laid flat on his back and reached, he could almost touch both walls at once.

Thirty seven. Thirty eight.

Some light exercises to get the blood flowing back into cramped limbs. Something to do to pass the time. A small measure of control over the situation. 

Thirty nine. 

A way to keep his mind off his solitude. The unnatural confines. The walls pressing in on him.

Forty.

Sweat in his eyes this time. His biceps really starting to complain. A clean burn, pushing back the cloying, dull ache in his head that never really seemed to go away.

Forty one.

Really thirsty now. Making himself sweat was probably a bad idea.

Forty two. Forty three.

Keeping in shape was going to be crucial as the days passed. There was barely enough room to stoop in here. He was going to have to figure out a way to effectively exercise his leg muscles.

Forty four.

He’d speak with Vala about it. She would have some ingenious suggestions. They could even make a game of it. He wasn’t sure his sanity could survive another round of Twenty Questions. 

Forty five. Forty six.

He wondered where they had taken her. It had been a long time. Longer than usual, he was almost sure of that. He had a new story ready for her, a plot he’d rehearsed to himself until he was sure he’d gotten it right. One that he was sure would appeal, borrowed from a book he’d read, a film he was pretty sure she was yet to see. Characters he thought she might like. He’d use enough creative license that he could keep the retelling satisfyingly lengthy. He was getting better at the delivery. She had said so.

Forty seven.

What if they didn’t bring her back this time? 

Forty eight.

No. Not thinking about that. They always brought her back. They wouldn’t allow anything to happen to her. She was too valuable. 

Forty nine.

They could move her elsewhere, though. Nothing to stop them doing that.

Forty…

Would they leave him here alone? 

Forty…

Shit. What number was he on?

He let his trembling arms give out and deposit him face down on the floor, his breath puffing against the damp surface.

Time to switch to something else. Sit ups. He shuffled over onto his back, reaching over his head to check the distance to the wall behind him. Plenty of space. An almost obscene amount of room. Lots and lots of space.

He crooked his knees slightly, keeping them loose. Hands up to either side of his head, only just touching behind each ear. Neck straight. He blew out a long breath and began.

One.

The satisfying constriction of taut muscle. Smooth movement up and forward, a controlled descent not quite touching the ground.

Two.

Long exhale on the upswing. Muscle memory keeping his movements steady and precise, no need for visual cues to guide his progress.

Three.

They would probably bring her back. It could be any time now. He was her incentive to remain cooperative, and she would demand to be returned to him. Of course she would.

Four.

Unless something had happened. Would she piss them off to the point where they hurt her? Or worse? Would they kill her?

Five.

No. Vala was smart. She would do what it took to survive. She wouldn’t risk herself like that. She wasn’t _him_.

Six.

She was resourceful. She’d find a way out of this, somehow. All he had to do was be ready to help her when the time came. To not be as completely useless as he had been up until this point.

Seven.

She’d be better off on her own. Without him to hold her back, she could already have gotten herself out of here. She had a history as dark as it was colourful. She had no doubt escaped situations worse than this before.

Ei…

Wait.

She wouldn’t leave without him, would she?

Fuck.

He let his back melt into the slimy floor.

What if she’d had an opening? An opportunity too good to let slide? He’d be the first person to urge her to take it. Absolutely. If she had a chance, she should get out of here, find her way back to the ‘gate and call for help. Perhaps their captors would be too busy to worry about one escaped prisoner. Perhaps she’d have a chance.

It all made sense now. Of course. She hadn’t just been gone for longer than usual. She’d _escaped_.

A ringing clang echoed from along the tunnel outside the cell door and every hair follicle Daniel possessed sprang to attention. Sitting upright, he shuffled to the farthest corner of the room and prepared to cover his eyes.

This was it. They’d discovered Vala missing. She’d done well. She’d had a good chunk of time to get far. If he could give her a bit longer, perhaps that would make all the difference. He would try. They would interrogate him, but it would be fuelled by frustration more than anything else. He had no information he could give them even if he’d wanted to. But he could at least delay them in their search. A few more precious minutes could be all she needed.

The sickly glow of torch light outlined the seams of the cell door, becoming gradually brighter as footsteps approached. The hatch was examined, and that welcome glow became a piercing shaft of too-bright light that poured into the cell and sought out Daniel’s sensitive retinas. He squinted between his fingers as a solid shape blocked the light for a moment, the guards shuffling about outside.

The pneumatic whir of the door mechanism was deafening after so much nothingness. A figure was pushed into the room before it had even opened all the way, and it was quickly closed behind them.

Daniel recognised a fleeting desire to surge forward and reach for her face, if only to confirm her presence. But caution made him hang back and wait.

“Vala?” he asked tentatively, praying he was right and praying that he was wrong.

“Who else?” she replied brightly. 

He allowed himself to feel relieved, the absurd hope of a rescue attempt already dissolving into the air. He moved towards her, their hands meeting clumsily in the void between them.

“Are you okay?” he asked as he pulled her to settle against him, already a ritual that marked each reunion.

“Same old same old,” she assured him, the squeeze to his wrists the most welcome greeting he could imagine.

“You were gone a long time.”

“Was I?” she replied almost distractedly. “I suppose I’m not keeping quite as on top of things as I thought. It probably took a couple of hours longer than usual.” 

Daniel relaxed back against the wall, ignoring the unpleasant sensation of wet slime seeping into his clothing. “Felt longer.”

Vala trailed her fingers up and down each of his forearms, snugging them more tightly around her until they were arranged to her satisfaction. “Are _you_ okay?” she asked him pointedly.

He nodded, his cheek brushing the tangled nest of her hair. “Fine.”

“Hmm. Because you sound so convincing.” She sniffed. “And what have you been doing in here? You’re drenched in sweat.”

“Sorry.” He moved to unwind his arms and allow her to escape, but she tugged on him impatiently until he sat still. “Just, you know. Push ups.”

Vala squeezed his left bicep teasingly and made an appreciative sound. The hum of vibration that travelled from her through his chest eased a tight coil of something inside him he couldn’t quite name. 

He should be sorry she was here. He should want her miles from here, the wind in her hair and the dappled sunlight streaking across her back, her feet eating up the soft earth as she raced for the ‘gate. He should-- 

“I’ll always come back, you know.”

He didn’t ask how she’d read his thoughts. She didn’t comment on his silence. And she didn’t push him away when he tightened his arms just slightly, his face finding its way into the crook of her neck.


	7. Chapter 7

Vala stumbled as she made her way slowly along the corridor, terrified that a wrong step would spill her precious cargo. 

She knew her feet were dragging. Every step was an effort. It had been days -- perhaps weeks -- of constant work, and she was beginning to feel the strain. 

They’d come for her every day without fail since this latest outbreak. She knew she couldn’t hope to contain it. She’d watched her third patient die just this morning despite a gruelling two hour vigil. On-and-off application of the healing device and what basic nursing she could manage had done nothing to stem the inevitable. The man, battle-scarred, brawny and with fingers calloused by weapon use, had died a slow and painful death. Before the end he had called for his mother. He wouldn’t receive a burial.

She was beginning to see more battle casualties too. She wondered why it was only now that the wounded were brought back from the fighting, and if all this time the injured had simply been left where they fell, calling for help as their comrades retreated. Perhaps their numbers were dwindling. Perhaps now even a wounded man was too valuable to waste.

A handful of women, the first Vala had yet to encounter here, had been drafted in to help care for the injured. They’d given Vala a wide berth, and she suspected they had been instructed not to talk to her. She’d watched one, a scrawny girl who couldn’t have been more than twenty, matter-of-factly tip her unconscious patient’s meal into her own bowl, a challenge in her eyes when she’d caught Vala staring. Vala had quickly looked away, and after agonising over it for several hours, had eventually followed the girl’s example. Food was evidently becoming scarce, and her own rations had suffered. She was confident that the man she’d stolen from soon wouldn’t miss food, or anything else, again.

She hefted the container in her arms. It weighed far less than it should.

The light became progressively more diffuse as she walked deeper into the bowels of the complex. She stifled an irritating cough that she hadn’t quite been able to shift over the last few hours. It was nothing, but Daniel didn’t need to hear it. The need would pass once she was still again. 

She longed for rest.

As she neared the questionable sanctuary of her own cell, her ears picked out the faint shuffling of occupants in some of the others lining the long corridor. This too was new. She didn’t want to speculate as to why none of them approached the hatches in their doors or appealed for water as she passed. She wondered if Daniel had heard them being brought in.

Her escort pulled her to a stop at the corridor’s end. As always, one of the guards checked through the hatch before opening the door and shielded the panel from Vala’s view as he entered the key code. 

Vala had long since given up straining to look. Between them, she and Daniel had yet to come up with a workable escape plan, and even if they’d had the strength left to overpower their captors, they were never given the opportunity to try. They’d learned early on that the door would not be opened until their guards were satisfied Daniel was far enough back, and the one time he’d tried to be difficult about it they’d had their rations confiscated. Their only hope was for Vala to gather information and try to make allies, but that was proving to be more difficult than she’d anticipated, and looking more and more unlikely. 

Her back already groaning resignedly, she bent and shuffled her way inside, the door grinding closed behind her. 

“Only me,” she confirmed wearily, a lesson she’d learned after her first couple of outings. She was rewarded immediately with the tactile reassurance she longed for whenever she was out of the cell, those warm hands reaching for her and pulling her close, the tension of the day released on a sigh as she was welcomed back into that place of safety.

“Everything okay?” Daniel asked, a variation on a theme he never strayed from whenever she returned. Her answer was always the same, whether it was the truth or not. 

“The usual,” she told him, and added a qualifier after some reconsideration. “Just tired.” 

The food and water forgotten for the moment, she wormed her way closer to the heat of Daniel’s body, unaccountably chilled despite the perpetual humidity. She was almost sure she wouldn’t be able to find a comfortable position, yet before she could muster the strength to tell Daniel about her day, she was stolen away into a dreamless sleep.

\---

She was coaxed reluctantly back to awareness by a delicate tugging sensation that sent little shivery prickles down the sides of her neck. She waited and it continued, a gentle, rhythmic pulling at her scalp that was strangely pleasant. 

Her eyebrows drew together. Was Daniel stroking her hair?

That slight movement was enough to betray her, and the light touches stopped. 

“Hey,” she murmured sleepily, and she felt him tense beneath her.

“Sorry,” he whispered. 

Was he embarrassed? Or did he think he’d woken her? 

Vala burrowed contentedly against his chest. “S’okay,” she assured him around a yawn. “I was getting a crick in my neck anyway.” 

She didn’t want to move, even despite her admission. There was nowhere to move to, and she was tired, still so very tired. And this was nice. Was that so wrong? To enjoy the comfort of another person’s presence? To want some small sense of security and tactile familiarity?

Daniel said nothing more, and Vala allowed herself to drift sleepily, soaking up his warmth. Her sense of smell had long since become inured to their less than savoury surroundings, but she liked Daniel’s unique, masculine scent, the soft bristle of his beard against the back of her neck when she moved, the thump of his heartbeat by her ear. She did nothing to prompt the tiny shifts that would signal the end of her allotted time in his arms, the end of what he found acceptable for sleeping. Small movements -- the straightening of his back, the stretching of his arm, perhaps the crooking of one knee -- would precede a subtle distance that always crept between them during their waking hours together. She missed the closeness when it was withdrawn, but she was reluctant to ask for what was not freely given. 

She hoped she was not imagining it, but she thought perhaps the delay between waking and parting was growing every day. She found she didn’t mind at all.

Vala watched the lazy play of shadow on the wall opposite, the increasingly frenetic dance of the shapes a precursor to the torch outside finally extinguishing. It would soon be black again. If the pattern of the last few days held true, they’d come for her not long after that.

She found she minded the darkness less as time went by and that her other senses helped pick up the slack. She wasn’t sure she’d call her perception sharpened, but she was aware of her surroundings in a way she had never needed to be before. She could tell the difference between an approaching guard with provisions and one without, just by the sound of his footfalls. She knew the exact distance to the door by instinct alone, and she had mapped every feature of Daniel’s clothing and hers with her fingertips. She could hear a smile in his voice and a frown, interpret the tension of a cramp in the limbs beneath her, and predict the need to reposition by the slightest play of muscles. His arms and legs sometimes twitched as he relaxed into sleep. His breathing always sounded different, too. 

She thought she would be able to recognise him anywhere now, even without light to see by or words exchanged. 

Despite her intentions, the need to move and relieve the pressure on her trapped arm forced her to shift around, and she resigned herself to the inevitable. 

Instead of being encouraged to sit upright, she was allowed to turn over and resettle. Her aching joints cheered tiredly even as her inner voice admonished her. She felt unaccountably guilty. She couldn’t work out why.

“It’s getting harder, isn’t it?” 

Vala startled slightly at Daniel’s unexpected question and struggled out of her own tangled thoughts.

“The sessions,” Daniel clarified when she failed to answer. “You’re gone longer every day.” 

This was not a conversation she was ready to face. She’d known it was coming of course, but she’d hoped their unspoken agreement not to acknowledge some of the harder truths would hold out a little longer.

Getting her hands planted firmly beneath her, Vala levered herself upright, her movements stiff and sluggish with exhaustion. “I’m fine,” she contradicted him, her words unconvincing even to her own ears, and had to stifle the sudden urge to cough as the sounds scratched against her throat.

She managed to cover the reflex by clearing her throat and turned to face the door. “I think I’m getting on top of things. Another couple of days and I’ll have everything under control.”

She rubbed tentatively at the back of her neck and rocked her head to ease the tight muscles. She could hear Daniel sitting up behind her.

“Don’t do that,” he said softly.

“Do what?”

“Lie to me.”

She stopped what she was doing and dropped her hand. The low flame outside caught a gust of air that sent shadows oscillating wildly across the cell walls.

“That must hurt.” She felt Daniel’s hand brush her hair to one side of her neck, no doubt exposing the mottled bruising she imagined decorated her back and shoulders.

“It’s nothing,” she snapped a little too hastily, jerking her shoulder from his reach. She immediately regretted her words, but when she turned back to him, there was only sad understanding in his eyes.

Shame and righteous anger warred within her for a moment but quickly died in the face of Daniel’s patient assessment. She wrapped her arms around herself and gave him a self-depreciating shrug. 

“Brought it on myself,” she admitted, a disgusted snort escaping in an attempt at humour. When Daniel didn’t buy it, she continued more soberly, feeling somewhat like a foolish child reporting to a parent.

“Got friendly with the wrong guard. Thought maybe I could win him over, get him talking. Turns out he _did_ like me, only in the wrong sort of way.”

Daniel’s expression darkened. She smirked at him coldly.

“He won’t be trying that again. Gave him a few bruises to remember me by, too.”

If they’d had the space for it, Vala suspected Daniel would have turned to pace, would have put some physical distance between them to help hide his reaction. All he had were the limited confines of their cell.

He launched himself awkwardly from his position by the far wall and brushed past her, slamming his palm flat against the cell door. Not satisfied with this, he then pivoted to give it a resounding kick, a growl of frustration accompanying the action. 

It was the first time Vala had really seen him lose the tight control he’d held over himself during their captivity, and she shrank back from him before she could stop herself.

“God!” Daniel yelled to the corridor beyond, his voice echoing down that empty tunnel. “I hate this place! I can’t stand it!” 

He fisted his hands in his hair, an attempt to contain the violence he had no outlet for. He forced his words through teeth clenched with the effort, his eyes screwed shut and posture rigid, an animal trapped in misery.

“I can’t stand being so powerless. I can’t stand waiting here every day, waiting for you to come back, praying you’ll be okay. I can’t stand knowing that you’re out there risking everything, that you’re… you’re…” He aimed another kick at the door, apparently out of words, and gave an inarticulate shout that could have been a curse.

Vala held back, unsure what to do or how to help. Something told her that words were not what were needed here, even if she’d had the right ones. Daniel was unravelling right in front of her and she needed to stop him, because if he went then so would she, and she couldn’t let that happen. He had been her strength in this place more times than she cared to count. If she could return even a small amount of it now, she would try.

She watched in silence as Daniel retreated from her and curled himself against the immovable plane of the door. She waited for his heaving breathing to slow. He wouldn’t look at her, his face hidden in the crook of his elbow, his body leant heavily against the arm braced across the door. She approached him slowly and reached out to him, her hand coming to rest lightly on his shoulder.

Moments passed and she let them. She let Daniel collect himself, lent silent, unconditional support. She knew what this was. She recognised the despair; she felt it too. She couldn’t stand to leave him behind each day, either.

Daniel took a deep, shuddering breath and turned his head to look at her, his eyes pained and smouldering in the darkness. She wanted to take that pain away, to banish the haunted, pleading look that didn’t belong on that strong face, to help him find himself again before he lost something crucial to the cruelty of this place.

The fight seemed to leave him all at once and he slumped back against the metal, his head leaning back in surrender. Vala’s hands found their way to the hair at his temples and he closed his eyes, her fingers raking through of their own accord. She pressed herself close, offering what little solace she could. Her eyes studied the face before her as she sought to smooth away the lines of torment.

It was almost beyond her conscious control. It was a natural thing to lean in, to press her lips to his, a chaste confirmation of presence, of comfort. They could steal this small morsel of peace for themselves, snatch what scant joy they could from this terrible, lonely hell.

Time seemed to slow. What began as an invisible, innocent pull flushed into something meaningful and urgent, a realisation that charged Vala’s skin with static. He felt it too, and she was suddenly in a vacuum, a void of sound and light and touch. There was just a narrowing sensation and the sharing of breaths, her whole body frozen in place. 

Something inside her rejoiced to feel him respond, tentative, gentle, his mouth parting slightly and it just felt _right_. 

Then he was gone, pulled back and away, his hands on her arms as a loose restraining pressure. 

“No,” he breathed. “This is a mistake.”

The blooming hope in her fled and Vala groped for it wildly. “Why? It’s very likely we will both die here. What’s the harm? Don’t tell me you don’t want this, don’t need _something_ to hold on to that’s not pain or cold or misery in this… this place.”

“Don’t say that. I have to believe we’ll get out of here. _You_ have to believe it.”

Vala felt an emotion she couldn’t quite define rushing in on her like panic. She couldn’t let this slip away. It was easy to fall back into her old persona, the one that had served her so well all these years, the one that had always managed to turn every situation back from crisis point. The one that shielded the vulnerable, exposed parts of her, that expected rejection and so couldn’t be hurt by it. The one that she needed less and less these days. 

She huffed and tried to keep her tone light. “Fine then. I absolutely believe it. We’ll be home in no time. What difference does it make? No one has to know.”

Daniel shook his head hesitantly, and she thought she could just make out a pained frown. “That’s not…”

“It’s not like we can exactly be picky here,” she continued with a forced levity she didn’t feel. The words felt like they were the wrong shape for her mouth. She felt dangerously out of control. She felt desperate. She forced a smile. “Come on. I won’t tell anyone if you really don’t want me to. Why not?” She let her fingers trail down Daniel’s chest invitingly and he threw her hands off. 

“Because! _I_ will know. It will make a difference to _me_. You might be able to compartmentalise this… whatever this is, into something casual and meaningless and convenient, but I’m sorry. I can’t do that. Don’t ask me to.”

Vala sat back on her heels and studied him, her chest tightening inexplicably. “So what, then? No because it won’t mean anything to you, or no because it might?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

He looked at her then, long and hard. He pursed his lips and turned his head in stony silence.

Vala had to swallow down an unwelcome swell of hurt that she hadn’t anticipated going into this. 

“You’re ashamed of me,” she announced.

“What? No--“

“Yes, you are. And you’re a hypocrite.”

Daniel sputtered. “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s always do as I say, not as I do with you, isn’t it?”

“What the…? How did we…? Where is this even coming from? Have I missed something?”

“Oh please. You know exactly what I mean. You’re not very good at the manipulative thing. You think you are, but only because I play along. You tell me what you think I need to hear to keep me on the straight and narrow, but you don’t actually believe your own words.”

Even in the near pitch black, Vala thought she could see the changing expression on Daniel’s face, first bewildered and incredulous, then annoyed. He was second-guessing himself. And she had stung him. Good.

“Wait. So I’m a hypocrite, and now I’m a liar too? Are you serious?”

“I could give you some examples, but I’m afraid that would only embarrass us both.”

He struggled for words for a moment, probably searching his memory for anything inconvenient or incriminating. He still sounded a little too unsure to be entirely triumphant when he finally spoke. “I still have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never been anything but honest with you.” 

Vala poured all the cynicism she could muster into her voice and tapped her finger to her lips. “Hmmm.”

That seemed to prompt him into a burst of defensive anger. “Oh anyway, like you’re one to talk! All the half-truths, and the front you put on for everyone, and the way you play on people’s feelings like they exist for your own entertainment. Is it a survival thing, or is it just for shits and giggles? Because sometimes it’s hard to tell.”

“There, see? Hypocrite.”

Daniel growled, and Vala thought she could see him jamming his fingers into his eyes. “Right. So, are you actually going to explain, or are you just going to stick to name calling?”

“Okay, first? Do drop the martyred victim act. It doesn’t become you and it’s not real. Neither is this prickly, cantankerous, overly- _serious_ person that seems to invade the Daniel-shaped space in the room whenever I come even close to scratching the surface with the real you. I don’t know what you think you’ve got to keep locked down so tight in that invisible fortress of yours, but I’ve got news for you: we can all see the walls and they’re becoming tiresome. 

“Second, professing one thing and behaving to the contrary is, I would argue, anyone’s definition of hypocrisy. You’ve told me on more than one occasion that you’ve come to trust me -- in quite a condescending manner, I might add -- and I’ve done all I can to live up that, especially given our less than auspicious beginnings. 

“But you know what? I’ve come to realise something. That for you, there are levels of trust, and I’m only ever going to be granted a limited amount. The… the bronze standard of trust. I’m going to keep butting my head against a ceiling because when all is said and done, you’ll never let yourself trust anyone to the full meaning of the word. You’ll forgive any stranger their flaws in a heartbeat, but you can’t even trust your closest friends enough to let them in.” 

Vala paused, dragging in a shuddering breath. “You’ll never… you’ll never really trust _me_.”

The light outside the cell chose that moment to snuff itself out in poignant conclusion. Vala inwardly cursed the timing; she would be unable to gauge Daniel’s reaction by his face. She could hear her own breathing puffing loudly in the space between them and used the stunned silence to bring herself under control. 

When he spoke, Daniel’s voice contained a vindictive edge that Vala recognised immediately. She had hit the mark, and she was probably about to regret it.

“You don’t know anything about me,” he said archly, “and don’t pretend you do, because we both know you’re only interested in yourself.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Yes it is. It’s entirely fair. Vala looks out for number one. Vala gets what Vala wants. Vala pouts and stamps her feet and uses people with absolutely no thought as to the consequences.”

The warm liquor burn of an old and ingrained guilt stirred uncomfortably in Vala’s stomach. She fought to tamp it down, determined to keep the ghosts of her past where they belonged. “Don’t you dare. Things have changed. You know they have.”

“Yeah? Guess that’s why the joke’s always on me.”

Vala frowned. He never took any of her ribbing seriously, did he? Or was he referring to the ruse she’d employed during their capture? She hedged. “Oh, do come on. A bit of harmless horseplay?”

“It’s not harmless when things go wrong. When people get hurt. When you pull a stunt like _this_ and everything goes to shit. I took _responsibility_ for you!”

Vala shuffled back, a warning in her voice. “Don’t yell at me.”

She could practically hear him clench his jaw. “I’m not,” he gritted out.

“Yes, you are. You’re _always_ yelling at me.”

There was the slap of palms against the floor.

“Fine! I’m yelling! What the hell do you expect? All you do is deliberately try to piss me off. Well, it worked. I’m mad. You win. Happy now?”

“You think this makes me happy? _This?_ ” She gestured between them angrily, mindless of the futility of the action. 

“Well sure. It’s what you’re always angling for, isn’t it? Get a rise out of poor, pathetic Daniel. He’s always good for a laugh.”

She did laugh, but it was a harsh, humourless sound, and she turned away from him. 

“Well?” he pushed. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Her head whipped back over her shoulder and she bit her words off sharply at the ends. “You’re. Wrong.”

He waited for more, and she imagined him raising his brows in mock invitation. “That’s it?”

 _No, of course it’s not, you idiot._ She would try anything, go to any lengths, to win his attention. To provoke a response from him. To tease a rare smile out from beneath that tangled burden of responsibility and grief. To settle for irritation and disdain if that failed, if only to coax a spark of life into him when he would close himself off from everyone around him. 

_Why can’t he see it?_ Why won’t he let her in because she _needs_ him.

“Yes, that’s it. I’m not going to spell it out for you.”

“Because there’s nothing to spell out. This is all a game to you and we both know it. And I’m too tired to play it anymore. Not here. Not now.” 

She absolutely would not cry. She would _not_. That thought alone brought hot tears of anger and frustration close to the surface and she swiped impatiently at her face. Why did this always happen? Why did real anger have to express itself this way when she needed it to strengthen her, to be pure, dignified, and righteous? He would take her seriously. He would not see her pain.

“Fuck you,” she managed, low and dangerous. “And you’re welcome, by the way.”

She expected a sarcastic response. An _oh yes, and a bang up job you did too_. Or perhaps _you expect me to be grateful?_ But he said nothing. She nestled as best she could into the furthest corner of the room, missing the warmth at her back like a drowning man misses air. She didn’t need it. She would teach herself to breathe water. 

For some time there was only the darkness and her own harsh, struggling breaths. It hurt her chest to control them, to force back the tears she couldn’t afford. Damn this place! This tiny, choking little space that laid her bare and allowed no escape, not from herself, and not from him. She didn’t even have the privacy of her own head, because he was in there, too. 

She wanted to shriek. To pummel her fists against the slimy walls and just _scream_.

She whirled, determined to have the last say, fuelled by her own anger and hurt to lash out one last time, to sting him as he was so casually capable of stinging her.

“You just love to be unhappy, don’t you?” she challenged sweetly, a dangerous edge to the tenuous control she exerted over her voice. “You can’t stand the thought of actually getting what you want, because you’re so afraid of losing it again. You’re a coward.”

“Oh, here we go again--“

“You’re a coward and… and… rude, and self-righteous, and _rude_ \--“ 

“For God’s sake. Give it a rest, Vala.”

“No! No, I won’t give it a rest. Not until you actually hear me. Got somewhere else to be? Something better to do? No. You have absolutely no excuse this time and for once you’re going to listen.”

“I think I’ve heard quite enough.”

“Why can’t you believe I’m really, genuinely interested? In you, for _you_?”

“Because this is _you_ we’re talking about. Can you honestly tell me, if it were anyone else here right now, if I were Cam, or Teal’c, or, hell, anyone one else _at all_ , would we still be having this conversation?”

Vala paused, the sharp intake of breath unexpected and startling. “I can’t believe you’ve actually just said that to me.”

“No? Because you’ve made it pretty clear that you have a one-track mind, personality compatibility optional.”

“You’re jealous.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You’re jealous and you’re hurt because you think the only reason I’m interested is that you’re the only option available right now.”

“You’re delusional.”

Vala rode over his denial. “If that were really true -- if I really didn’t care who I could… could… whatever it is you think I want to do -- do you honestly think I’d have wasted all this time, all these long, lonely months of rejection and scorn and almost pathological disinterest on _you_? On the one person who doesn’t hesitate to push me away or look down his nose at me? The person least likely to ever just _relax_ long enough to make it easy for me?”

Daniel made an unflattering sound. “You like a challenge. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was money riding on it.”

She felt her throat close up, a painful bloom of emotion rising to choke all sound. How could he be so blind? So deliberately obtuse? She couldn’t make him see when he was so determined to misunderstand. She’d laid out everything, and he’d flayed her.

She turned, unable to continue. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. All she could do was retreat back to the wall, to put as much distance as was physically possible between them and try to get herself under control. She would have to master this and move on, because it was just _too hard_. 

She breathed, deep and slow. She could hear the shuddering of those breaths but couldn’t silence them.

Daniel tutted and sighed forcefully. “Oh, stop it. You’re not that upset.”

The tears began to spill, and almost all at once her anger deserted her. All that was left was an aching loneliness, a loss that felt no less profound for its complete absurdity. She’d never had him to lose. If she’d let herself become invested in something fictional, she had only herself to blame now that it was proven without foundation.

She heard Daniel stirring behind her and prayed silently that he would not try to approach. She wasn’t sure she could handle even the slightest touch without breaking, without flying apart with hysterical sobs. 

He didn’t. Instead he sighed again, and Vala thought she could detect the slightest edge of uncertainty in his voice.

“Look, just forget it, will you?” he said.

“I’m trying to,” Vala sing-songed, and hoped her facetious response would cover the thickness to her words.

She snuffled as delicately as she could, using the filthy sleeve of her jacket to mop at the wetness on her face. She was so preoccupied with her task that the hand caught her off guard and she jumped, her arm flinching away wildly.

“Don’t.”

The hand ignored her warning and sought her arm again, this time travelling awkwardly up to her shoulder. He’d moved in front of her. They were only inches apart and she hadn’t noticed, hadn’t detected his approach. How long had she been like this?

“Vala.” He spoke her name as a question and a statement at once. It was enquiry and apology and, she realised, the only word she really needed to hear.

Daniel’s hand ghosted up her neck to her face and she shut her eyes, trembling against the gulping breaths her tears demanded she make. His thumb swept tentatively along her cheekbone and through the evidence of her distress. She held herself still, lips pressed tight against any sound. She should turn her face away, but the way he lingered kept her frozen. She didn’t want this. Not now.

“Vala…” he said again, a whisper this time, and she felt her control slipping.

“Please don’t,” she tremored, but still she could not pull back.

His hand dropped from her face and he sought out her own. He grasped them both, bringing them up to clutch between them. She dared not move an inch. She didn’t want to break the spell.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured brokenly, and Vala could hear the effort it cost him to keep his voice even. She felt her face crumbling and was obscenely thankful for the darkness, the bane of her existence and her faithful protector.

She felt herself leaning forward, and when their foreheads touched she returned the squeeze to his fingers. She let herself cry and was quiet. Daniel’s laboured breaths mingled with her own and stirred the fine hairs on her face.

“I’m sorry,” Daniel told her again, his voice no stronger, and she nodded silently. “I didn’t mean--“

“Yes, you did,” she interrupted haltingly, squeezing his hands gently when he took a breath to protest. “And so did I. But it’s okay. Because I understand.”

“It’s just that… I just can’t--“

“I know.”

“And I know that you don’t really--“

Vala shook the hands in hers to silence him. “Shh. I know.”

She felt the pull of a sorrowful smile against her own brow and a snuffle of weak laughter on her face. “Good. Just as long as we both know.” Daniel's humour fell away as quickly as it had come and Vala allowed herself to be drawn into his arms.

They remained that way for some time, and when they came to take her from the cell, Vala’s tears had just about dried.


	8. Chapter 8

He’d killed her. He’d done this. He’d broken something inside her that she’d needed. It was like she’d given up.

He was a fucking idiot.

Vala lay curled on her side, back to him, head pillowed on his folded jacket and hair spilling messily onto the ground. Her wheezing breaths were loud in sleep. Each one provoked a sympathetic twinge in his own chest, a popping rattle that didn’t belong.

Daniel chewed absently on the pad of his thumb and watched her, the cool wall at his back, the pitiful moaning of some poor suffering creature in one of the other cells drifting by on an occasional stirring of air. 

She was so thin.

She’d complained to him before -- _before_ before -- with half-hearted teasing that neither of them had really had the energy to properly practise. She’d told him he was becoming gradually less suitable as a pillow. She’d poked at the knobbly protrusion of his knee, the bony point at his wrist, the hang of his voluminous jacket, and chuffed a sad laugh. Her hip bones ground painfully against the floor without a healthy soft roundness to cushion them, but now he had no padding to offer, either. It hadn’t stopped her crawling into the meagre shelter of his arms each time she’d returned. That had stopped now.

Vala shifted in her sleep, her boots scraping at the bumpy ground.

The vitality, the life that was Vala, was fading. Vivacious, vibrant Vala. He was losing her to this place, like he knew he would.

The first time she’d come back to him after their argument, she’d been subdued and aloof. She’d put on a brave face, a smokescreen of reasonable and polite indifference to hide her lingering hurt. She didn’t need his help, thank you. She was perfectly fine. If he wouldn’t mind moving over a bit, she’d have enough room to stretch out. No, she didn’t need his jacket.

She’d struggled into a fitful sleep on the hard ground and he’d felt like the biggest heel in the galaxy. He’d left the food she’d brought untouched.

The time after that she’d fought him off.

He’d reached for her, an apology on his lips that she wouldn’t hear, a plea that she’d easily ignored. Again, her previous anger was gone. He hadn’t known how to respond to her cool, distant manner.

The silences were awkward, the conversation stilted. He couldn’t understand it. He’d gotten what he’d wanted, hadn’t he? So why did he feel so disappointed, so bereft?

Today, he’d heard her coming long before she’d reached the cell. The whooping bark of her cough had echoed down the tunnel, her breathless wheezes following soon after. She’d returned empty handed, a small pouch of water all their guards would give them.

“Don’t touch me,” she’d sniffled miserably once she was inside, drawing her jacket closer around her too-thin frame. 

She’d remained by the door and he’d stayed back as she had asked. She’d swiped the back of her hand through the moisture under her nose and shivered visibly.

“Vala, please,” he’d tried, willing her to accept, to forgive him properly. To take what little comfort he could offer her.

He’d used the cover of more wracking coughs to move closer, stopping only when she’d begun scratching furiously at her scalp.

“Not so much,” he’d admonished her gently, trying to draw her hands down, concerned she’d rake herself raw with her own nails. She’d yanked her hands back and hidden her face with them.

“I’m disgusting,” she’d finally whimpered, her shoulders falling with the shame of her admission.

“Come on. Come here.”

He’d led her back to their corner where, with quiet gratitude, she’d finally accepted his jacket for a pillow. She’d allowed him to help her drink and had reluctantly agreed to share yesterday’s cold meal. He’d thought perhaps she’d acquiesce this time when he’d moved to draw her close, but she’d only placed a soft hand on his thigh.

“I don’t want you to get it too,” she’d told him before she’d fallen asleep. A poor excuse, but he hadn’t argued.

He watched her now, the slow rise and fall of her chest, the tiny reflexive curlings of her fingers, the movement of shadow across the angles of her face. She was going downhill, that much was certain. She could no longer hide her deteriorating condition.

He had to do something. 

The words he’d needed to say had died on his lips that first time. Her demeanour had made it easy for him to hold back, to convince himself his natural reticence was sensible and correct. Even now he struggled to recall the explanations he’d rationalized to himself. Not to excuse his behaviour exactly, but to help put it into some context. Something he wasn’t entirely clear on himself, but that he’d felt the need to share with her, if only to offer her the tiniest insight into the bewildering mess he hid on the inside. To assure her that it wasn’t her fault, that the fault lay with him. 

He couldn’t give her what she wanted.

He knew she looked at him and saw safety. Stability. Trust. She looked to him for the promise of all that had been missing in her life, with the blind faith of the devoted. She’d placed her unconditional trust in him because he’d been the first to offer some of his own. He’d made the effort to see past the posturing and the flippancy and given her the benefit of the doubt when he had no cause to. She couldn’t understand why he’d reached a plateau now, because she had this false ideal in her head, a construct with no real substance. She’d built him a pedestal he couldn’t hope to balance on.

She didn’t see him for what he really was.

He was broken. A used up, empty thing, bitter and weary and nothing like the man he used to be. He was complicated. Vala was carefree, forward and unafraid. She was alive. She was everything he’s not.

They would never work.

He knows this. He knows she knows it too, and despite everything, that thought still makes him angry.

He can’t risk what intimacy would mean. He can’t go that last step and open himself up to that hurt again. Because he would get hurt. It was in Vala’s nature. 

The rational part of his brain agreed with this assessment wholeheartedly. If only he could persuade the other, more illogical parts to follow its lead. 

It was a vapid, physical attraction. That’s all this was. He didn’t need that in his life, and he had no room for it. He cared about Vala, of course, but it was nothing more than a friend’s concern for another. He couldn’t let himself need her. Scratch that. He _didn’t_ need her. If he let the lines blur, it would lead to trouble, the way these things always tended to (for him, at least). And the way things were headed right now -- a slow slide into weakness, hopelessness and almost certain death -- it would do neither of them any favours. 

He didn’t know why his instinctual reaction was to be so abrasive with her. He’d never meant for things to go so far, to get so out of hand. Yes, there were elements of truth to everything he had said, but he’d used them as weapons to cut her with, honed down and sharpened and aimed with fine precision. Was a truth stripped of context as hurtful as a lie? He suspected it was more so. 

It was something she did to him. She pushed all the right buttons to trip this defensive response in him, one he had little control over, it seemed. Once it picked up steam he became unrecognisable, and before he knew what he was doing, he’d said things he couldn’t take back.

No, this was better. Kinder. Safer. Vala was right. They needed to maintain some distance. But he was damned if he was going to watch her suffer alone.

Vala shifted and moaned in her sleep, her head tossing fitfully from side to side. He shuffled to her side and lifted her slightly, settling her carefully in his lap. Her hand curled itself spasmodically in the material of his pants and then relaxed, her whole body stilling. Her breathing sounded somewhat eased.

His fingers strayed to the ends of her hair and he stopped himself. Something twisted painfully deep inside his chest. 

He was lying to himself. He was already too late.

“Just can’t keep your hands off me,” a voice croaked with quiet humour, and he startled. He hadn’t realised she was awake.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Daniel returned around the lump in his throat, relieved beyond words to hear the unspoken acceptance hidden in her jest. “I was cold.”

Vala tried for a lacklustre chuckle that turned into a weak cough. “Big… baby.”

Daniel’s hand made slow circling motions on Vala’s back as the attack subsided. “Stop talking,” he told her gruffly, and he could just make out the sloppy mock salute she managed to sketch. He lifted his jacket from the floor and draped it over her.

They sat in the most comfortable silence they’d managed for the last couple of days, and Daniel was finally able to let himself relax a little. Before he was aware he was drifting, his chin dropped forward and he jerked upright, unintentionally jostling his charge. Instead of disturbing Vala's sleep he found her still awake, and all traces of her humour had vanished. 

“They operated without pain relief on one of them today,” she confessed unsolicited into the darkness. “I think he died.”

Daniel blinked at the lack of light and wondered how long it had been since he’d closed his eyes. He waited for more from her, and when it came, it was delivered with a flat detachment that chilled him.

Vala described her day’s work to him with cold, clinical detail. The screaming men, the blood. The horrors of missing limbs and evisceration that no healing device could hope to repair. The stinking, festering wounds, the dirty bandages, the lack of medicines. The aftermath of torture that she was forced to repair, only to have the patient returned to her, again and again and again.

She was doing as he had asked, he realised slowly. Sparing him no detail, sugar-coating nothing. Telling him the whole truth. He wondered just how long she had borne this in silence, and if the telling of it now made it more real. She’d brought it back to the cell with her now, to the one place she’d been able to escape it. She’d done this because he’d asked her to, and all he could do was rock her as she trembled.

When she finally stilled, he thought perhaps she had drifted again into sleep. Instead she spoke once more, a little more strength back in her voice.

“Tell me it again,” she asked him. “Please.”

“Which part?”

“You know. That one. It’s nice.”

Daniel leaned back and combed his fingers as best he could through Vala’s clumped hair, brushing it back from her face. It was dirty and matted and the most beautiful thing in the world. She didn’t ask him to stop, and he no longer felt the need to stop himself.

He cleared his throat and she settled herself more comfortably, curling a fist into the front of his shirt, into folds loosening almost by the day. It was slowly disintegrating from his body in the constant damp. She didn’t seem to mind.

“Some birds aren’t meant to be caged, that’s all,” he recited. “Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure…”

\---

Vala slept for hours. The water ran out, and eventually Daniel had to move to relieve the cramps in his legs. He laid Vala back down to the floor and tried not to think about the heat she was radiating, or the fact that the movement did little to disturb her.

He’d made his decision: they would not take her today.

The familiar sounds of movement outside came at last and he took up his usual position. If it took him a little longer each time they came he didn’t care to measure it.

Vala stirred but didn’t wake as the door grated out its agonised journey and Daniel shuffled forward, placing himself in front of her.

The guards stood in the doorway, wary of this break in routine, and the one holding the weapon wiggled the business end vaguely in Vala’s direction.

Daniel licked his lips. “Uh, hi. Look, I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but Vala’s sick. She’s not going to be able to help you guys out today. Sorry.”

The guards remained where they were. One of them said, “She comes. Now.”

Daniel glanced back at Vala’s motionless form. “Yeah. See, that’s not going to work out. I told you. She’s sick.”

The two men seemed to consider this for a moment, turning to one another in indecision. Daniel couldn’t quite make out their faces.

The weaponless man stepped towards Vala, and Daniel made an abortive move to intercept him. “Wait--“

“Back!” the second guard barked, jabbing the pain stick at him threateningly.

Daniel reared back and held up his hands, but the other guard had stopped his approach and was eyeing him with caution. Trying for his best placating tone of voice, Daniel lowered himself closer to the ground.

“Please,” he said, his heart in his throat. “Please. Just one day. She’s no good to you like this. She needs chance to recover.”

For a moment he thought perhaps his entreaty might work, the two men pausing to consider his words. Then the one nearest Vala seized her wrist and shook her, dragging her partly from her position.

Daniel clenched his fists. “No…“

“Shut up,” his overseer hissed.

Vala moaned and threw back her head, but didn’t fully rouse. The man slapped her.

Daniel must have moved then, although he didn’t remember it. There was suddenly only unrelenting, searing pain, his own scream ringing in his ears, the hot point of the pain stick jammed into the hollow at his collar bone. When it stopped he sagged breathlessly in time to see Vala’s teeth sink into the hand fisted in her collar.

Her assailant yelled a curse and fought her, extracting his hand with a jerk that must have torn flesh. His partner turned to help him, and it was all the opening Daniel needed.

He barrelled forward with all the power he could manage, tackling the bent legs of the stick-wielding guard and throwing him off balance. He used the momentum to force the man’s arm around and the pain stick connected squarely over his partner’s kidney. 

Daniel wrestled for control and wrenched the device from its wielder’s grip, frenzied desperation lending him all the strength he needed. The walls of the cell lit up in dazzling brilliance as he bore down with the device, and shrieks of agony reverberated in the tiny space. 

It was over quickly. The red haze lifted, and Daniel found himself staring down at two prone men, bodies slack, the dark stain of blood glistening wetly where he must have swung the blunt end of the stick, ending the screams with two sick smacks. His breath was exploding from him, sweat running freely down his face. He’d probably killed them both. 

His stomach rolled slowly and he swallowed thickly. His fingers loosened and he almost dropped the device. He tore his gaze away from the pair and blinked at the door, wide and open and full of seductive promise. He almost couldn’t process what he was seeing. 

He couldn’t afford this. There wouldn’t be much time. He snapped his attention back to the bodies in front of him and fell to all fours, patting down their clothing for anything of use. He found no other weapons and cursed in frustration. They would have to make do with what they had.

Vala remained pressed back against the corner, a look of absent fascination on her face and her eyes pinned on the two men on the floor. She pulled her sleeve across the blood on her chin with a robotic motion.

“Vala,” Daniel called to her urgently, his hand reaching to snag roughly at her clothing. “Vala, come on.”

Her eyes focussed all at once and she snapped her gaze to his, the fog of sickness clearing a little. She scrambled unsteadily over the bodies and joined him, and together they pulled themselves from the cell.

Almost immediately, Daniel realised his mistake; his legs wouldn’t hold his weight. Vala caught clumsily at his arm and fell with him to the floor. The muscles in his back screamed a protest against the effort to straighten.

“Daniel,” Vala whispered with alarm, understanding widening her eyes. Bright splotches of fever coloured her cheeks and a clammy sheen made her skin shine. 

“Just need a minute,” he told her, and breathed through a strange sense of unreality. Without the walls of the cell pressing down on him, he felt unaccountably lighter. Was this what Vala experienced every time she left the cell? The space almost made him dizzy.

It took two attempts to finally make it upright, and even then Daniel had to lean heavily against the wall. His treacherous legs trembled with fatigue before he took a single step, and the simple act of standing straight sent shards of crippling agony through his limbs. 

Real fear hit him then; he knew he’d be unable to get far.

She was in no condition to drag herself along, let alone him, yet Vala attached herself to his side with single-minded resolve. With much halting, lurching and limping, they made painful progress past the neighbouring rows of stinking cells, driven more by the terror of discovery than the need to escape. Every step was a torture, and by the time they reached the head of the block they were both breathing hard. 

Vala brought them up short at a four-way junction and seemed to take in their location for the first time. She hesitated, her head turning this way and that, each direction considered and discarded. Daniel forced himself to keep his feet, not at all confident he’d be able to regain them if he allowed himself to sit. 

“I’m not sure what to… Where do we go?” Vala looked about with fever-bright eyes, and Daniel realised she was afraid. He pulled her close and made her look at him, putting as much confidence as he could muster into his voice. 

“There’s got to be a way out of here.”

Vala shook her head frantically. “There’s nothing. Everything’s blocked up, sealed. The way we came in will be heavily guarded. And the rest of this place is like a maze.”

“Then we have to find a way past the guards.”

“With this?” she mocked plaintively, clutching the pain stick in her hand like a club. “We don’t even have a real weapon! They don’t exactly leave piles of them lying around. They’re desperate for every single one.”

Daniel thought furiously, ignoring the pain spiking down each leg. “You said there were devices, right? Other Goa’uld devices?”

Vala stared at him, her eyes widening.

“Think, Vala. Where?” With a ribbon device, perhaps they’d have a chance.

“Okay, okay. Just let me…” She moved a step away from him, her eyes screwed shut in concentration, and seemed to find her answer. She turned with sudden purpose, her attention fixed on a blind corner at the far end of the corridor ahead of them.

“This way,” she said, and he forced his feet back into motion. 

Despite their ridiculously slow progress, the corridors and turnings passed Daniel by in a blur. In places they were required to negotiate fallen debris and loosely piled stacks of salvaged building materials. Daniel was too busy focussing on making it from one minute to the next to map where they were going, and it only occurred to him that Vala may not know the way when she tugged at him to turn around at one point, backtracking him to an ominously familiar intersection. 

The urgency of their situation could only spur them on for so long before they both needed to stop to rest. Vala volunteered to scout ahead before Daniel could protest, and with another assurance that she wasn’t lost, she disappeared around a corner.

When she returned, she was confident she’d found a way she recognised. She could see rooms, rooms that could hold discarded hand devices. She pulled on his arm to lever him upright, and he found with dismay that his legs had stiffened and were locked in place. 

This wasn’t going to work.

“Vala…”

With her own wobbly legs only just about under her, she lifted one of his arms over her shoulders and heaved. They fell forward together and it took nearly all Daniel had to brace himself against the corridor wall. 

“What are you doing?” Vala said. “Stop stopping. Come _on_.”

The pain made Daniel groan. “Vala, wait.”

“We don’t have time for this.”

“You have to go.”

“I’m _trying_. You have to _help_ me.” Vala hauled on his arm again, and together they staggered another couple of steps.

Daniel bit back a cry of frustration. “You’re not listening to me. You have to--“

Vala rounded on him. “No, _you’re_ not listening! I’m not leaving you here, so stop saying it!”

“Vala…”

“No. I’m not doing this again. Either we both go, or we both stay. I didn’t go through all this to... to…” She jerked his arm angrily and he stumbled forward, his tightened limbs screaming their suffering.

“Christ, Vala,” he hissed.

“I’m in charge,” she told him hotly as she pulled him along. “Invoke as many deities as you like.” 

By the time they reached the storage room, tears of pain and exertion were running freely down Daniel’s face. Vala propped him by the wall and dropped exhausted to her knees among disordered piles of equipment. 

The space was strewn with hastily discarded items no doubt purloined from other unfortunate travellers. Daniel scanned the room for any sign of the rest of SG-1 or of their own belongings. There was nothing he recognised, nor much of any other value.

Almost too tired to heed the noise she was making, Vala sifted through sacks and boxes, sweeping objects to one side and tipping containers on their end, her searching becoming progressively more frantic.

“They’re not here!” she half-sobbed, and let a stack of ancient cloth slide into disarray around her. The eddy of dust it sent up started her choking and she clutched her hands to her mouth, trying desperately to hold back each spasm of sound. 

The telltale echo of approaching footsteps raised the hairs on the back of Daniel’s neck and he checked the hallway behind him, gesturing urgently for Vala to get up. She half-ran, half-fell towards him, and he shoved her through the door with all the strength that remained to him.

“Go!” he urged her, not quite catching his own fall as he crumpled painfully to the floor. “ _Go!_ ”

She hesitated, looking back at him with a mixture of fear and shock. It would cost her everything.

 _Please_ , he begged her with his eyes, and as their pursuers finally surrounded them, he thought he saw her mouth his name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lines Daniel quotes to Vala in the cell are taken from _Different Seasons_ by Stephen King, a collection of short stories including _Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption_. If you haven't read it or at least seen the film, I urge you to remedy this situation immediately. Go on. What are you still waiting for?


	9. Chapter 9

_Meanwhile, planet designated P4X-235_

The small yurt was draped with a heavy cloth, tasselled, dense, and redolent of many rains and a thick, sweet incense. It blacked out the light and lent the interior an old sort of mystique, the sickly yellow glow of tallow candles the only source of illumination.

Sam ducked her head, mindful of the low cross beams, and allowed the flap of stiff fabric to collapse behind her, sealing her inside. She picked her way respectfully through the detritus of domesticity -- a set of porcelain bowls arranged on a tray, chipped and worn and beautiful for it; a rug in progress, the skeleton of its weave stretched on a rack and awaiting the skilled fingers that would clothe its nakedness; the piles of skins, fleeces and furs, opulent and warm and absolutely precious. These were the trappings of a life both simple and complex, the necessities for survival enhanced by the craft of those living it.

“Come, child,” a voice beckoned, and she crossed to the two stooped figures, a swirl of scented smoke curling about their heads.

She laid the offering at their feet in hushed reverence, a spare handful of steppe flowers rendered colourless in the flickering light. A round appliquéd cushion offered the only seat and she lowered herself onto it, her legs folding awkwardly and her position graceless. She didn’t quite know what to do with her hands.

Weather-worn fingers accepted the gift, scooping the delicate plants from the mat and removing them from sight. The trade of commodities was forbidden here. In the morning, an exchange of goods would be welcomed; knives, tools, cloth and cooking wares were invaluable to a nomadic people whose lifestyle limited industry of their own. For now, a token of respect was all that was required, and it appeared that Sam had chosen well. 

“You honour us,” the voice spoke again, thickly accented and gravelly. “How may we honour you in return?”

Sam finally allowed her gaze to travel upwards, taking in her hostesses and their exquisitely finished clothing. The speaker was an older woman with loose black hair which was unadorned and straight as a die. Her kindly eyes sparkled with shrewd intelligence and the crinkles at their corners spoke of someone quick to laughter. 

Beside her was an elderly woman of many years, her skin wrinkled and liver spotted. Rheumy eyes peered at Sam over sunken cheeks, and her silver hair was bound in two thick braids that spilled over her shoulders. Both wore skins of the finest workmanship, the luxuriant fur turned inwards and the leather patterned with decorative stitching, bright beads and tinkling silver bells. Their feet were clad with closely fitted skin boots stuffed with dried grasses to pack and line them.

The two women sat across from Sam on seats piled high with furs, the back rests fashioned from interlocking antlers filed smooth and white at their points. All about was evidence of this people’s hallowed beast, every part used and not a thing left to waste. There were bone-handled knives with leather sheaths, scrimshawed antler scraping tools, soft and pliable skins worked until supple, and strips of drying meat to see families through leaner times. 

Sam shifted under the measured scrutiny of the two matriarchs, the weight of tradition bearing heavily down upon her.

“Honoured mothers,” she recited, the scripted words tasting somewhat clumsy in her mouth. “I come seeking guidance, for myself and my travelling companions. They are sons of the Great Herd, and may not enter here.”

The younger woman smiled and inclined her head; Sam had spoken correctly. Her eyes still on Sam’s, she leaned close to her elder and translated the words, her language guttural and alien yet strangely musical. When she had finished, her eyes danced with a playful amusement at odds with the formality of her speech.

“You seek that which is lost,” the woman intoned, “and you wish to know of success if you are to quest further. Many come seeking such assurances.”

Sam allowed herself a polite smile. SG-1’s mission here was widely known. SGC personnel had been stationed on P4X-235 since the fateful mission that had broken her team in two (others saw it more of a paring down, she knew, but had the sense not to say so in her presence), and had only encountered the migratory natives several months into a long-term study of the planet’s orbital behaviour. It had a fascinating gravitational relationship with its closest neighbour in the system and this area’s substrata exhibited properties that had Geophys in raptures. Sam would have found the place intriguing, had circumstances not been very different.

Yet her presence in this tent was a charade. In truth she had been summoned to receive a ‘telling’, and advised she would do well to answer the call. It was a great privilege to be granted an audience here, she’d been told, and continued diplomatic relations demanded she acquiesce gracefully. That she was the most senior female officer available was merely an inconvenience she would have to weather.

“I humbly beg your wisdom,” Sam said with a bow of the head.

“It is not our wisdom, child,” the woman answered with good-natured condescension. She narrowed her eyes just slightly, and Sam sensed she was being weighed and found wanting. “You have doubt in your heart.”

Sam did not know what to say. 

The woman nodded to herself. “We will consult with the ancestors and learn their insights. Then we shall see if you can be swayed.”

With no further signal Sam could discern, the intricate ritual began.

Chanting low in her throat, the elder of the two women accepted the objects of her calling from her aide: a single feather, long and grey, which was passed over Sam’s head to some invisible choreography; a tight coil of dried herbs set smouldering and fragrant, its smoke coaxed to play about Sam’s nose and eyes; and a shallow bowl of milk, its surface sprinkled with spices and shared between them, thick and creamy and with an earthy flavour exotic to Sam’s palate. 

Preparations complete, Sam offered her hands when prompted. The old woman took them into her own, her arthritic joints gnarled and awkward, the skin of her knuckles paper thin and soft, her perfect fingernails trim and neat. Together they sat, heads bowed and silent, as their breath steamed between them in the chill air.

When she finally straightened, the elderly woman released Sam’s hands and spoke softly into the ear of her companion.

“The items from the two,” the younger woman prompted, and Sam surrendered the pouch from her belt. 

The elderly matriarch ran her hands over each of the objects presented to her, humming approvingly with each one. For Daniel, a bandana, its corners creased from repeated knotting. For Vala, a hair clip, the iridescent plastic rounded and tarnished with use.

A meaningful silence was held over each in turn and they were placed back into the little bag. Sam received them with a nod of thanks and watched patiently as the reading was given, the younger of the wise women leaning close to catch every softly spoken word.

There was no dialogue between the two, but rather an imparting of knowledge from one to the other, the recipient bowed respectfully in waiting. When the process was complete, there was a period of silence, the women deep in contemplation, the implications of what had been learned perhaps requiring a moment to interpret.

Sam felt her attention wander slightly, lulled by the building warmth in the dark and humid space, until the younger wise woman straightened to deliver her verdict. 

“I am Ingá,” the woman spoke at last, her hands passing over her face in greeting. “Our Great Mother bids you welcome and invites you to share in our shelter for the duration of your stay.”

“We are honoured,” Sam replied, remembering the expected response. The woman smiled.

“Our Great Mother has asked our ancestors for their wisdom and has been shown your path, if you would know it.”

“I would, as it please the ancestors,” Sam dutifully replied. 

Ingá paused, and for a moment Sam worried that she’d strayed from the script SG-11’s anthropologist had rehearsed with her. The elder reclined further into her seat, eyes closing in rest.

“Our Great Mother sleeps,” Ingá observed calmly, as if all was as it should be. “I will tell you of her words. But first I would know you, and the others that make up your number.”

The woman took Sam’s hands again, her grip firmer and cooler than her elder’s had been. She turned her face towards the ceiling of the yurt and shut her eyes, her head cocked slightly to one side as though listening for some far off music. Sam waited, surprised to find herself nervous and somewhat impatient for the telling.

“You are a strange people,” Ingá began, her words sombre and evocative. “Leaders you have in great numbers, and many of them sons. This is not our way, but it has served you well. Our people know it takes a great many to follow, and but a few to show the way.”

Here Ingá stopped and brought her head down, her eyes finding Sam’s with piercing intensity. “He who leads you now did not desire it. He struggles to step out from an overbearing shadow, yet it is his own self-doubt that casts the greater shade.” 

Sam felt her brows knit. She didn’t understand. But of course, the readings would be intentionally vague. She wondered why she felt disappointed.

Ingá took a breath, her gaze returning to the heavens, her eyes slipping closed.

“One son is not as the others. He has carried a great evil within him, yet strove to shrug off its yoke.” Again her eyes opened and she looked directly at Sam, her message parsed from her observations. “He has led a double life, and chose to sacrifice one to preserve the other. The choice, when it came, was easy for him to make, though he mourns the memories he has set aside.” 

The fine hairs on the back of Sam’s neck lifted in unison. As far as they knew, this society had not encountered the Goa’uld for some time. They had told no one of Teal’c’s origins, and no one appeared to have recognised him as Jaffa.

The woman paused once more, again looking away.

“Your fourth sought long for that which has been lost. He has known much grief and fears to tempt it again.” Sam was prepared to hold the woman’s eyes this time and fought to suppress the prickle of apprehension that sensitised her skin. “Your fifth has a fiery spirit, and she too has prevailed despite great injustice. They wait for you, and for each other. Do not delay too long.”

Sam felt a flush of warmth travel up her neck as those eyes, astute and assertive, maintained their direct link with her own. This hit too close to home. There could be no misunderstanding, yet Sam’s scientific mind raced for a rational explanation. She believed in coincidences, if belief even came into it, the mathematics of chance a comforting and certain principle. Yet she found her logic being overridden by an instinctual resonance, by a natural compulsion to find meaning in random parallels.

Her turn was next, and she found herself balking at the prospect.

“And what of you, daughter?” Ingá asked, a knowing glint in her eyes. “What path have you followed as we follow the herd, its trail ever true over tundra and steppe? What obstacles have you overcome in that great unknown?”

Sam’s breath caught, her pulse thudding, the gentle squeeze to her fingers preparing her for the words.

“Your heart is full, but your mind is strong. It can be hard to know which to heed. Your fear holds you back when it should galvanise you. Do not mistake it for weakness; use it to help you seize your potential.”

Before she could stop herself, Sam was shaking her head. “I’ve tried leadership,” she said with a brittle laugh. “I’m not really sure it’s for me.” 

It was Ingá’s turn to shake her head, though she smiled gently as she did so. “It is the way of the herd for the mothers to lead. The doe protects her calf. She guides it to fresh pastures and searches out nourishment from beneath deep snows. She holds the memories of her many years and uses her wisdom to find the best path. And she is fierce. In winter she keeps her points so that she may ward off attack from the many foes that would assail her. She does not discard that which is of value, though others may replace the old for new.”

Sam’s hands were not released immediately, though she had no desire to pull away. She felt mesmerised by the words, their meaning teasing at the edges of her mind. She swallowed thickly, her throat constricting against an emotion she couldn’t name. 

Ingá sought Sam’s unfocussed gaze once again, this time softened with a maternal kindness that she found she couldn’t look away from. “We each follow a path, its end obscured by distance and time. Understand that it is not a line we follow, but a circle, an ever-repeating cycle, a rhythm that governs all things -- the beasts that follow the seasons, the people that travel in their wake, and the worlds as they circle the sun, ever to return to the place of their beginning. Learn from your journey, and you will never be lost.”

Sam felt her face pulling into a smile, responding to the encouraging smile on Ingá’s own. This was a pep talk. One she hadn’t realised she’d needed. This woman, this stranger, had a faith in Sam that she hadn’t had in herself for a long time, and it was strangely welcome, even if it meant nothing more. 

Ingá slapped her thighs, casting aside the sombre mood as quickly as it had fallen. “And now, we come to it. What you came for. Forgive an old woman’s ramblings.” 

The woman rummaged among belongings stored in bags by her seat, withdrawing a long-stemmed clay pipe and packing it with nimble fingers. She lit it and puffed, leaning back to begin her telling. “You are close, closer than you know. The patterns you study hold the answer, if you’ll take the time to look. Let them guide you, as bird and beast navigate by the night sky. And remember that some points of light can only by seen on the darkest of nights.”

A ring of smoke shimmered in the air between them, pushed on Ingá’s breath into a spinning, expanding loop.

“I will tell you now of our Great Mother’s words,” she continued, watching as the ring dispersed into the darkness over Sam’s head. “She bade me tell you an ancient tale, one we tell the young of every generation. It goes like this. In eons past, we were of one people…” 

\---

The air was crisp and clean when Sam emerged from the yurt, the grass frosted and glittering beneath her feet. The clanking of crude bells drifted from the distantly corralled herd, the groaning of the reindeer an ever-present comfort for their human caretakers. Their musk was pervasive, but not unpleasant. Sam breathed deep.

The others rose from their makeshift seats and approached when they saw her. Teal’c eyed her speculatively. Mitchell clapped his gloved hands together and rubbed them vigorously against the cold.

“So,” Cam began, scepticism evident in his tone. “Anything?”

Sam allowed her thoughtful silence to stretch longer than she’d intended.

“I knew this was a waste of time,” he continued before she could interrupt, and Sam had to reach out a restraining hand to remedy the misunderstanding.

“She told me a story.”

“A story.”

“Among other things.” Sam scuffed the toe of her boot into the permafrost. She would keep the reindeer analogy to herself. The last thing she needed was Cam comparing her to a ruminant at every opportunity.

“Anything that might suggest fancy tech?” Mitchell pressed. “No hidden cities? Mysterious overlords? Phase-shifting doodads?”

“She said that legend tells of a time when her people were divided, or split in two. The two tribes were able to develop their own ways, one choosing to move with the herds, the other presumably going down a more sedentary route in more favourable climes. I took it to be a metaphor for the parting of company, each following its own path and so forth. I think she was trying to be comforting.”

Teal’c looked thoughtful. “It was not unheard of for the Goa’uld to transplant populations of slaves to other locations, much as one might manage breeding livestock. There may well be a number of small communities located throughout more temperate regions of this world.”

Sam wished it were that simple. “I think this is pretty much it, Teal’c. The habitable regions on P4X-235 are limited to a narrow band around the equator, and it doesn’t get much warmer than this, even at the height of summer. The seasons here don’t fluctuate in the same range as on Earth.”

Teal’c conceded to her point by inclining his head. 

Sam sighed. “I know what you’re thinking. I’m sure their society is steeped in history and that their folklore is based on fact somewhere along the line, but I just don’t think there’s anything here that could account for our detour. There’s only one ‘gate on this planet, and the missing MALP definitely isn’t here.” 

It had taken weeks of trying to replicate the phenomenon that had delivered the team to the unknown destination that had eventually separated them. Sam suspected it was loosely related to timing -- both of the rerouted ‘gate activations had taken place just before midday Earth time -- but had yet to confirm the conditions required to trip the malfunction, if that’s even what it was. Their S&R teams hadn’t detected even the faintest signal from the one MALP that had made it through to the mystery site since the wormhole had closed behind it. Wherever it was, it wasn’t on this planet.

Teal’c exuded a regal calm the fur-lined hood of his coat could not disguise. “The secondary Stargate theory may indeed be erroneous, Colonel Carter. I believe however we would benefit from closer inspection of the DHD, if only to eliminate other possibilities. And we must observe this people’s customs if we are to gain the information we require.” 

“You’re right, Teal’c,” Sam agreed. And he was; any amount of weirdness was worth the small chance they might find something, even if it was only confirmation of their doubts. “And it wasn’t even as bad as all that. It was certainly… interesting.”

“Oh yeah?” Mitchell prompted, sensing she was holding something back. “Not going all mystical on us now, are ya?”

“I was as dubious as you going in, Cam. You know what I’m like.”

“Sure. You’re the Scully to our Mulder.” Sam’s deadpan stare matched Teal’c’s perfectly, and Cam frowned. “What?”

Sam looked about at their surroundings for inspiration, at a loss as to how to describe her impression of the place. “It’s just that I get this feeling that something’s not right here. Something’s… I don’t know. Significant, somehow. I know how ridiculous that sounds.”

“It is my regret that my gender prevented me from being able to receive the reading in your place, Colonel Carter.”

“Don’t quite trust me to be open-minded, Teal’c?”

Teal’c inclined his head respectfully. “On the contrary. Only that your wont is to analyse, as you are trained to do. I however have had many years to find insight into the spiritual realm.”

The mood changed subtly in the pause that followed. “The right person for the job is the one who’s not here.”

It had become a habit of theirs not to address the elephant in their midst directly. They skirted the thing, almost afraid it would take physical form if it was acknowledged with more than allusion and coded references. The rare times they did so seemed to suck the air from the room, and Sam was almost sorry to have done it now. 

“Daniel Jackson would no more have been granted entry than I,” Teal’c responded with a patient calm that Sam had come to rely on more and more often these last few weeks. She realised how much she had missed hearing that name spoken aloud.

“We should go get warm,” Sam said, deftly changing the subject. “We’ve been offered the hospitality of the tribe for the night. We’re looking for a yurt with a dark red entrance.”

Cam turned to cast a doubtful, sweeping glance across the clusters of beige, brown and earth-tone dwellings, then threaded his way hesitantly among the structures.

“We will find the answers we seek elsewhere,” Teal’c assured Sam as he passed, and she gave him a grateful smile that only made her cheeks ache slightly. 

But as she followed her team into the encampment, she couldn’t resist a final glance back at the yurt behind her, the taste of spices still fresh on her tongue.

\---

The newly fallen snow was already freezing into a light crust. Sam could hear Cam’s boots crunching with each step. She’d known he’d be the one to find her after she’d slipped out, even despite his half-hearted grousing about the ever-present cold.

He came to a stop at her shoulder, his gaze fixed on the stars above. “We never expected it to work. We all said that going in.”

The nights were so bright here that Sam could see eddies of snow crystals curling lightly in the wind, minuscule drifts reforming fluidly across the vast stretch of tundra before her. “I know. Can I still be disappointed?”

“Sure.” Cam produced a lopsided grin. “I am.” 

Sam wanted to return it, but found she couldn’t match his self-depreciating humour. “I guess I just hoped for something, you know? A miracle, maybe.”

“You’re not alone there.”

A stronger gust shook flakes from the boughs of the stunted pines flanking the encampment and stirred the fur lining of Sam’s hood.

“Yeah, but usually that’s not me,” she countered, angry with herself. “I thought we were just doing this to cover all the bases, double check the other team hadn’t missed something—“

“Convince ourselves there’s still something to try?” 

“Right. Now that the formalities are out of the way, tomorrow we can sit down with the elder women and negotiate for more intensive access to their ‘gate.”

Cam nodded, filling in the blanks for himself. “A long shot, but the last thing we have left to go at.”

Sam threw a frustrated arm out to one side and rubbed at her forehead. Despite the cold, her hairline was clammy beneath her many layers. “I already know it’s pointless. I can’t think of any scenarios where the receiving ‘gate could be the problem. Not when there’s been no activity this side.”

“But it’s worth a shot.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. The thing is, I thought I was just playing along. That taking part in their ritual would help smooth the way.”

“Don’t wanna come late the party without at least complimenting the salsa. Because that would be rude.”

Sam smiled despite herself and let Cam put a friendly arm around her shoulders. “Got your hopes up, didn’t cha?” he guessed, and Sam ducked her head.

“It’s more than that,” she admitted. “I believed. For a second there I really thought she’d have the answer, and when I came to my senses I felt like an idiot. Of course she can’t predict the future, or speak to spirits, or read our palms. Teal’c may be able to rationalise all that to himself, but I can’t. None of it meant anything.”

“Hey. Don’t be so quick to dismiss it. I had my fortune told once and I swear at least half of it came true.”

Sam cast him a sideways smirk. “Let me guess: tall dark stranger? Long journey?”

Cam released her with a smile. “Something like that.”

Sam raised her eyes back to the starscape sweeping above her like flicks of bright white paint. Even the brightest constellations were lost to the sheer density of so many fainter points, their clarity outshone by their dimmer, more distant cousins which clustered together and glowed in a way so rarely witnessed on Earth. With her naked eye Sam could see detail that light pollution would otherwise have robbed her of. She so seldom took the time to marvel at the beauty of a clear night’s sky anymore.

Cam followed her gaze, content to take the brief silence as his cue to steer away from troubled waters. “Big moon out tonight,” he commented, hands coming to rest on his hips.

Sam smiled, appreciative of the effort. She knew what he was trying to do.

“Actually,” she replied, “it’s not a moon. It’s another pl—“

She stopped so abruptly, it was as though her face was frozen in a rictus. She turned, mouth still open, and gaped at the man beside her, her thoughts elsewhere entirely.

“Sam?”

Of course. How could she not have seen what was right in front of her? 

“The worlds as they circle the sun,” she repeated quietly to herself, her thoughts whirring. 

The MALP they’d lost had transmitted a series of final, jumbled images before the connection had been broken. One of the last had contained the fuzzy outline of a tree canopy, the freeze-frame captured as the vehicle had been toppled onto its side. Just visible between the leaf cover had been patches of night sky, stars smeared to streaks by motion blur. The constellations had been impossible to distinguish, but there had been something else visible she had dismissed at the time.

She needed those images from the lost MALP. She would check, but she already knew what she would find.

What they’d taken for a moon had loomed large in the picture, and she remembered now the oddly familiar feature on its surface. It had a distinctive darker band through its middle, almost as though its circumference was marked by a smudge of shadow.

Not shadow, she realised now, but light. They’d been looking at a distant stain of vegetation, the tree line and tundra giving way to frozen wastes on an otherwise uninhabitable planet. 

They’d been looking at the planet they’d dialled, the one the MALP hadn’t reached.

They’d been looking at P4X-235.


	10. Chapter 10

Daniel lay on his back, his eyes roving the impenetrable blackness cloaking the ceiling above him.

The muted thud of soft-soled heels impacting a hollow surface echoed in his head.

He remembered his first days here almost fondly. Especially those days when they’d left a torch burning in the tunnel outside, the faint glow enough to pick out grainy features in the cell around him. The slight curve of the brick walls. The outline of his own hands. The worn channel along one side of the cell that carried effluent out into the corridor beyond.

Daniel hadn’t been sure at the time which days he’d preferred. The darkness had been intolerable; seeing the limits of his prison had been worse.

Now, he thought wistfully of a low flickering flame.

Lacquered fingernails drummed a light, demanding rhythm on a table top. He tried to ignore it.

The darkness, the silence, the solitude -- it caged him. It was a physical barrier that turned his thoughts in on themselves and left him nowhere to hide. If he didn’t already know what madness felt like, he’d swear he was losing it. Perhaps he was, only slower this time.

He closed his eyes.

The flashes behind his eyelids still tormented him, a legacy of the long hours of punishment he’d endured.

His body was no longer his own. His muscles twitched and spasmed with a lactic burn, ghostly remnants of current licking through his nervous system.

It turned out he hadn’t killed the men after all. Not quite. The irony of that was not lost on him; if he’d made sure to finish the job he might have been spared the zealous retribution of the humiliated.

On the other side of the cell Vala sighed, impatient for his attention. Always so dramatic.

He should drink something.

He still tasted blood.

It was in his nature to fight them. He’d prolonged the torture with his insolence and bitten his own tongue, but the spit he’d landed had made it worth it. They’d continued long into the night, driven him to the edge of madness, laughed, got bored, and left.

They’d left him alone in the dark.

Alone with his doubts and fears.

Alone in his head.

For a while he’d been torn between a bloody-minded will to live and a spiteful desire to just die, to starve himself to death and deny them this final game.

But Vala would want him to hold on, to keep going. That had made the decision easy. He was rationing it, but he’d decided to drink the water.

She’d told him to. Pointed a toe towards it and suggested, oh so reasonably, that he might feel better if he did. He’d refused to look her way and crawled painfully to the water in his own good time. He’d convinced himself it had been his own idea, had been nothing to do with her. She’d praised him anyway like a recalcitrant child, then promptly disappeared.

Now she was back.

So far she’d said nothing.

She regarded him thoughtfully, legs swinging, leather-clad rump perched on the edge of an imaginary desk in a way that seemed to defy gravity. She wore one of the skin-tight outfits she’d long set aside, her hair piled on her head in an elaborate twist, one lone pale streak like a go-faster stripe painted along one temple. She was sex appeal and danger and mischief, a suggestive package done up in buckles. She was the promise of excess, of the loss of control.

“I told you I’d always come back, didn’t I?”

Daniel let the corners of his lips curve into a tired smile, and he was rewarded with a multi-watt grin that lit up Vala’s face. This was his secret picture of her, a guilty pleasure he indulged in every now and then. The one he would never admit to, even under threat of torture and death.

Even during her most infuriating, exasperating, blind rage-inducing moments -- the ones that made his fingers itch with the need to reach out and throttle her, or smother her, or pull her closer and make her just _be quiet_ , by whatever means necessary -- she maintained a hold over him that he was powerless to fight. And all because of this, this right here. She was nothing less than stunning. This was the Vala he could summon whenever he closed his eyes. This was the Vala that visited him in his dreams. 

She posed for him as he watched her, his eyes drinking her in, and purred in that throaty way of hers. She exuded confidence. Eyes locked on his, she arched her back and tipped her head to one side, exposing the long expanse of her throat.

He knew this game. They’d played it often enough. Funny that it didn’t rile him now like it once did.

Her eyes twinkled, the rise of her breasts straining to escape the confines of the shiny black material encasing them. She brought her elbows in, pinching her upper arms closer together and encouraging the break out.

Several moments of silence passed, and Vala was the first to break. A snuffle of mirth burst from her and she abruptly gave up the act. Her feet went back to describing childish circles in the air beneath them.

He blinked and she changed. In place of the straps and clasps were loose-fitting BDU pants and the ubiquitous black t-shirt, fluffed out pigtails bouncing from each shoulder. Her radiant smile mellowed and she eyed him speculatively, an undercurrent of self-consciousness to her bearing that she tried hard to hide. This was the real Vala. His Vala. The one he held dear. The one she trusted him to see when she took her defences down, when she set her armour aside. He cherished this side of her, because he knew just how few people were permitted to know it.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, and her eyes were liquid with feeling.

Another sharp twang of current arced across his nerves and he scrunched himself tight. He hoped to God that she’d escaped this, that she was safe and whole and well, wherever she was.

“Why, Vala?”

The sounds were rough and scratchy, but she heard him. She tilted her head sadly and waited for him to catch his breath.

“Why did you do that?” he asked her again, and he could see immediately that she knew he wasn’t referring to her game.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said anyway, her nose raising haughtily with feigned indignation. It took her longer to summon the bluster these days, he’d noticed. 

“You waited. You shouldn’t have waited.”

She tossed her head with an unladylike snort and leant back on her hands. “It’s like you don’t know me at all,” she said.

Of course she wouldn’t have gone. She’d said as much to him. He just needed to understand, to make _her_ understand what a mistake it was to risk herself for him. He didn’t want that burden.

“You might have made it,” he continued stubbornly, but she only shook her head.

“You’d have done the same thing,” she assured him. There was nothing he could say to that.

Daniel thought back ruefully to the discussions they’d had like this, the ones that had revealed just how similar they both were, as much as he’d tried to deny it. He’d come to some rather uncomfortable conclusions about himself since.

“What are you thinking about down there, darling? I can see the wheels turning from here.” Vala affected a husky cadence and propped her chin in her hand. “You know it would be rude to ignore me. I’ve come all this way.”

She was right. He’d summoned her here, after all. And he needed to get this out.

“You were wrong before,” he said carefully, voicing a realisation that had been hard to come by. “I do trust you. It’s _myself_ I don’t quite trust.”

“What do you mean?” Vala’s voice turned serious, her lingering gaze certain. “You’d never do anything to hurt me.”

“That’s just it. I think I could, without even meaning to.” Vala cocked her head to one side and he rushed on before she could interrupt. “I don’t entirely trust myself not to destroy this thing from the inside out. It’s what I’m good at, Vala. It’s what I do. And it would kill me. If I let myself really want this -- want you -- and I end up driving you away? I don’t think I could handle that.”

Vala hopped down from her seat and came to crouch beside him. A single fingertip wandered lazily along his arm, over his shoulder and up his neck, terminating in a tap to his nose that made him wrinkle it.

“Want to know what I think?” she said, her voice solemn. “I think you don’t really believe that. I know it. I know _you_. You’re afraid something will happen, something out of your control.”

Daniel considered this, entertaining and then discarding a hundred different rebuttals. Vala watched the indecision war on his face, then nodded to herself decisively.

“You’re not afraid you won’t want this enough. You’re afraid you’ll need it _too much_.”

Daniel felt his mouth go dry. If he’d had the energy left to move away from her, he’d have got up. Instead he lay where he was and closed his eyes.

“We live dangerous lives.”

“Any job has its hazards,” Vala countered.

“We work together. We need to stay sharp. Feelings compromise things, get in the way. It would be stupid.”

He imagined Vala arching a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Yes. Because we’ve done such a great job of staying detached.”

“You don’t understand…”

“That you’ve lost people? That you never want to have to go through that hurt and loss again? That you’re protecting yourself from being let down again? Please. Give me some credit.”

He had to steer away from this, from a wound still too raw to probe. He couldn’t bear for anyone to see the depths of the sorrow he still carried, even if that person wasn’t real.

“Personnel files are confidential, Vala.”

“Pfft. I don’t need files to tell me that.”

He gave her a look.

She rolled her eyes.

“Oh, all right. I may have skim read. And then inferred the rest. What’s that Tau’ri phrase? Reading between the words? And I’ve known small children to hide secrets better than your SGC. They were practically begging to be rifled through.”

“It’s your SGC now too, you know.”

She waved him off. “Anyway, you’re avoiding the point.”

Damn her. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“How about the truth? Come on. If you can’t say it to me now, when will you? We can call this a practice run. Go on. See what happens.”

He was losing an argument with his own subconscious. What the hell?

Vala rose from her crouch with a lithe grace he envied and walked from his field of vision. It made it easier, somehow, to address the darkness in front of him. Easier even than talking to a figment, because having her eyes on him was like having his inner most thoughts laid bare for all to see, like having the darkest, most shameful parts of himself on display when he wanted to hide them, push her out of the way and shield her from them, to nurse them jealously in privacy and darkness.

His throat worked soundlessly to swallow down a painful rise of emotion. “I just… I think it’s too late. I think I’m too broken.”

He lay a heavy arm over his eyes, painfully dry eyes that no longer had the moisture for tears. He heard Vala move to his shoulder and thought maybe he could feel gentle fingers in his hair.

“I know what bereavement is like,” she murmured. “I know how hopeless it can make you feel.”  

He shook his head, a weariness settling over him that he knew would soon defeat him. “Grief I can do. _That_ I’m good at. I’ve had a lot of practice, and I got an early start. It’s what comes after I can’t face again. The rebuilding, the carrying on. I just don’t think I’ve got it in me to do that any more.”

Vala broke the quiet that stretched with soft words. She’d moved away again, closer to the door. “Maybe you won’t need to.”

“You can’t promise me that.”

“No. I suppose I can’t. But I can promise you this: if you let fear of the future stop you from trying for something more, you may as well stay stuck in this cell. Because you’ll still be a prisoner, just with see-through walls.”

It was an effort to drag his arm away, to angle his head and find her again, inexplicably standing straight and tall and as clear a vision as daylight through a window. She was waiting for something from him, something he no longer had to give. Couldn’t she see she was better off without him?

“I just don’t think I can do this. I’m sorry.”

Vala offered him a sad smile. “Probably a moot point anyway, I expect. I’m likely already dead, right?”

“You’re not dead.”

Vala cocked her head to one side. “How do you know?”

“I just do.”

“Hmm. Well, what about you? Not to sound morbid or anything, but you’re not looking so great yourself.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” It was starting to hurt to talk.

“I just mean that you’re, you know.” She waggled her fingers vaguely to either side of her head, puffing out her cheeks and crossing her eyes.

“Wonko?”

“Talking to a dead woman.”

“I told you. You’re not dead.”

Vala gave him a sympathetic look. “All right, darling. If you say so.”

He hated it when she humoured him. She did it so rarely that it usually always meant he was compromised in some way, or in need of that special brand of coddling only Vala seemed able to pull off. He squashed the instinctual need to argue. He didn’t want to fight with her. He didn’t want her to leave.

“Stay?” he pleaded, but she was already turning towards the door.

“You don’t need me,” she told him, and blew him an affectionate kiss. “I’ll see you soon.”

And then she vanished.

\---

It was nice of Jack to keep him company, really. These long, lonely days were stretching, and he was in desperate need of a distraction from the gnawing hunger, the ever-present thirst and the unwavering, suffocating monotony.

He wouldn’t say anything at first. Which was just as well really. Daniel had lost the ability to reply with anything more than a painful croak some time ago. And what was there really to say? It was just comforting to have him there sometimes, to catch a glimpse of him lounging against the far wall of the cell, or standing in that way of his, hands clad in fingerless gloves resting lightly over the weapon strapped to his vest, cap pulled back and sunglasses obscuring the mischievous glint in his eye. Daniel wanted to ask him how he managed to stand comfortably in such a cramped space, how he could be so clear and defined in the near solid darkness of the room.

He was thirsty all the time.

Sam came too sometimes. And sometimes Teal’c. And once, his old roommate from college, which he hadn’t expected. He didn’t think the guy had liked him all that much. He’d thank them if he didn’t suspect that would be faintly ridiculous.

“Come on, Daniel,” Jack said to him and nodded his head towards the door. “Time to go already. Up. Let’s go.”

_I want to_ , Daniel thought as loudly as he could. He couldn’t seem to get his feet under him properly.

“Time’s a-wastin’,” Jack continued, checking over his shoulder for something only he could see.

He’d better get a move on. He knew Jack could be impatient with him, that it was better to humour the man when he could and store up credit for those more pressing times. Times when he absolutely had to have those few extra minutes, when he had to weigh carefully the pros and cons of arguing with the boss. The Colonel. The Man. If only he could get himself up. There was something wrong with his legs.

“Carter’ll be pissed. She made waffles.”

There it was. The playful, wheedling tone. Daniel’s favourite kind. The one that said Jack was in a good mood. That Daniel hadn’t done anything yet to piss him off. The one he used when he could afford to be generous, when there was nothing too pressing, too life-threatening, too Earth-in-peril-and-we-need-to-go-now that he couldn’t spend a minute or two to tease. That was nice. Jack never did get to kick back often enough.

Funny, how it didn’t seem to fit. 

Jack turned to go, the wound at the back of his neck glistening wetly.

_Don’t go. Wait for me_. “I’m coming.” It was a croak, no more than a whisper really. But it was too late. Jack was gone. Daniel missed him whenever he went.

He had to get up. He didn’t want to be left behind, not here. He rolled himself over onto his side and tried to clear his blurred vision. Something must have happened to his glasses because he couldn’t see a damn thing.

“J’ck?” he called, then tried again, panic lending him the force he needed to summon a bit of volume. “ _Jack_?”

Then he remembered. He couldn’t go yet. He had to wait. He had to wait for Vala.

He let his head sink slowly back to he floor, his eyes still tracking the route his friend had taken, hoping to get one last glimpse.

“Later, Jack, ‘kay?”

He didn’t think Jack heard him.

\---

Mitchell lay on his side, his head propped on one hand, the other draped casually along his flank and a bored expression on his face. Sam knelt beside him and examined his insides, hushed exclamations of delight escaping her as she discovered his inner workings.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

“That tickles,” Cam complained as Sam removed a length of wiring from a gaping hole in his midsection.

Daniel watched as Sam pulled, her hands working one over the other, coils of wire gathering at her feet. Cam twitched as the line caught on something, but with an impatient tug it came free, and Sam continued her task. At one point she stopped, reaching into the space she’d excavated and removing a clockwork organ of some kind, its wheels and cogs rotating in perpetual, synchronistic motion. Sam peered at it, fascinated, balancing it delicately on the ends of her fingers like a fragile, sacred treasure. Then she tossed it casually over her shoulder, its pieces separating and tinkling into the dark corners of the cell.

“I’ll find a way to get you out of here,” she said as she continued to pull on the wire, her movements stronger now, her focus absolute.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Daniel realised sluggishly that she was talking to him, not to Mitchell, who had begun to help Sam with the plunder.

The distant ticking sound grew louder, and Cam looked up with alarm. “Hurry, Sam,” he urged.

Tick. Tick. Tick.    

“I’m going as fast as I can,” she groused.

“Aren’t you gonna help, sunshine?” Mitchell asked pointedly. Cam always called him sunshine. He didn’t know where that had come from.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

“It’s no good,” Sam said abruptly, throwing up her hands in disgust. “If he won’t help, this isn’t going to work. He doesn’t want to fix this.”

They both turned accusing eyes in Daniel’s direction, and he wanted to shrink back and hide from their scorn. He’d let them down. He knew he had.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

He wanted to tell them why, to explain that he had to stay. But he couldn’t quite remember, and they were getting up to leave.   

_Sorry, Sam_.

\---

“Come with me, Daniel.”

Vala stretched out her hand to him, a warm smile on her face that thawed some of the aching heaviness weighing him down. He lifted his arm towards her and she nodded in encouragement.

No matter how far he reached, he couldn’t quite touch her. She moved no closer and waited. He couldn’t do it.

He trusted her to know what to do. If she said they could go, then they would go. She wouldn’t lie to him, not now.

He let his hand drop.

He had to stay. He remembered that now. He had to wait for her.

Vala’s smile turned brittle and she withdrew her offer. She wouldn’t help him if he wouldn’t help himself.

That thought hurt, made the skin around his eyes prickle, until he remembered it wasn’t her.

“You’re not real.”

Not-Vala retreated backwards into the shadow, the darkness reclaiming her face like liquid.

_I’ll wait right here. I’ll wait for you._

\---

Teal’c wore his Jaffa robes like armour. They seemed to deflect the energy blasts showering all around them, swirling in slow motion as he danced, his body repositioning with majestic grace after every swing of his staff.

Blinding orbs of light were sent flying back towards their attackers, the staff windmilling with a speed that defied the eye, the blur of movement solidifying into a protective shield that no fire could penetrate.

Throughout the cacophony of sound and light Teal’c stood as a pillar, calm and immoveable and imbued with a steadfast purpose. He was magnificent.

The battle ended and Teal’c turned his back on his foes, leaning down to offer a supporting arm and one of his rare, enigmatic smiles. His large hand grasped Daniel at the elbow and hauled him up, catching him as he fell.  

Daniel tried to warn him, to thank him and help him and ask him what had happened, but he couldn’t find the words he needed. And everything was happening too fast. Teal’c was hurting him, and that wasn’t right.

The trusted face of his friend morphed into someone unrecognisable, and the cell regained its form around him in a disorientating swirl of vertigo.

The door was open, and to Daniel’s dawning horror, the stranger dragged him roughly from the cell. He blinked in fear at the looming men around him, their incomprehensible barks lost amid a confusion of jostling, flames and pain.

_Teal’c!_

He found with sick realisation that he couldn’t stand, and despite several faltering attempts received a glancing blow for his efforts. It was all he could do to drop to the floor and wrap his arms over his head, an attempt to ward off the unwarranted attack.

Another blow made his ears ring and he cringed away from the fiercely yelling voice. He didn’t understand. Brutal fingers dug into his arms and wrenched them from his face and he struggled, crying out when a strong grip twisted in his hair, baring his neck.

There was a flash of metal and he stiffened. It was the unmistakeable glint of a knife. A thrill of purest terror shot through him.

_Help me!_

“No,” Daniel gasped and renewed his struggles, panic lending him strength he didn’t think he still had. He wrenched loose of the hold to one arm and swung wildly, connecting with the fleshy midsection of one of his assailants.

“Hold him!” a voice snarled and the restraining grip returned.

He was flipped around and crushed against the corridor wall, a knee at the small of his back and his shoulders shrieking a protest. It felt as though they were trying to dislocate his arms. Even the slightest movement sent sharp stabs of agony through each joint.

His head was once again wrenched back and he tensed. A figure in his periphery moved in for the killing blow.

“Stop. Don’t!”

He stilled completely as the flat of a blade was pressed firmly against his cheekbone, its point terrifyingly close to his eye. A face loomed into view and he locked eyes with it, his breath trapped painfully in his chest.

“Be still,” the face instructed coldly, too close to focus on.

The metal lifted from his skin and Daniel closed his eyes.

The edge touched his throat and he flinched, but instead of the cold bite of the metal there was only a rasping sensation, the familiar nicking of hairs as the blade swept up towards his chin.

An explosion of breath left him on a half sob and the hands holding him down tightened as he sagged. This made no sense. He didn’t understand.

He barely registered the few warm trickles of blood and tiny cuts, too intent on the progression of the blade from one side of his throat to the other, up each cheek and along his jawline. Too numb to feel anything but a remote sort of mortification for the tear slipping uninvited into the melee.

The hand in his hair tilted his face as required and he didn’t resist. Satisfied with his work, the man shifted, yanking Daniel’s head down and forward. Again the blade worked its way around his head, large hanks of too-long hair falling casualty to its appetite.

Daniel stared down at his knees in a daze as his hair fell to the floor around him, every _snick-slip_ of the knife resonating with insidious clarity. His head jerked as each handful was grasped and then cut.

When it was finally over he was trembling finely, his teeth clacking uncontrollably. The shock of cold water dousing his freshly exposed scalp made him gasp, then choke as the unexpected liquid flooded across his face. He was released all at once and brought his hands to press desperately at his burning eyes. The astringent, foul-smelling stuff was not water but a chemical of some kind, and it ate mercilessly into every nick and cut on his skin.

Blinded and disorientated, he was propelled forward from the wall, the heels of his hands scraping roughly along the floor when he tried to break his fall.

“Move,” someone ordered with a kick, and with a sick sense of relief it dawned that they were herding him back to the cell.

He was half lifted, half dragged back the way he had come and hauled unceremoniously over the threshold. He scrambled as far as he could from their reach even as the door ground shut behind him and groped for the relative safety of the far corner.

The caustic stuff in his eyes continued to burn and he clawed frantically at them. His heart thundered in his chest. He was shaking. He was an absolute mess.

But he was still alive.

As the full implications of what he was sure he’d narrowly avoided sank in, he moved to draw his feet in close. The toe of one boot clipped an unexpected bundle lying to one side and he froze, paralyzed by the thought that a guard had remained inside with him.

Seconds passed without the slightest movement and he reached out a tentative hand, only to encounter a brushed velvet surface that had no business being in his dank, slimy little universe. He explored further and found skin, warm and clammy.

The bundle coughed weakly.

_Vala._

“Vala,” Daniel croaked, the sound a pale imitation of her name. His fingers traced the outline of her face, the curve of her neck, the stiff and dirty fabric of her clothing. She whimpered as his hands found her arms, turned her body, pulled her towards him.

_Shh. It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay. I’m here. I’ve got you._

The sounds wouldn’t come.

He swaddled her in his jacket, the effort almost more than he could manage, and willed her to know him, to hear him without his voice.

She lay in his arms and he rocked her, his fingers longing to sweep hair back off her neck, to tuck strands behind her ears, to brush it gently from over her eyes. She felt so much smaller without it, naked and vulnerable and diminished.

This woman was bird-like and delicate and breakable. She was wrong. This wasn’t his Vala. His Vala was sharp corners and hard edges, elastic and tensile and resilient. His Vala was indestructible. His Vala took his crap and reflected it right back at him. His Vala repelled sorrow like water on oil. He couldn’t bear to see it stick.

He guided her hand to his face, traced the lax fingers over his jaw, down his nose, across his brow. He pressed his lips firmly to each knuckle, turned her hand and repeated the action, this time with the tips of her fingers. He coaxed her fingers to flex and held the palm against his cheek.

The smallest of movements would have been enough, but Vala was still. Her breathing was barely audible, her limbs loose and heavy.

She’d said she’d always come back. She hadn’t left him then. But now? Now she was going to break her promise.

Daniel held her close and prayed, the tears slipping silently down his face.

_If you leave me here, I’ll never forgive you. Do you hear me? Never._


	11. Chapter 11

The Stargate loomed at her back, quiescent and huge. Ugly tech encrusted its perfect surface like barnacles, wires winding and threading like snaking weeds around its arches.

Sam deliberately avoided Mitchell’s eye. They should have noticed this.

\---

They walked. They walked through rain and sun, night and day. They counted the passage of time only by the crackle of the radio, the teams checking in. At a nod from Cam they’d rest. When Teal’c would pace, they’d begin again.

Sam could think of nothing to say to either of them.

\---

The dead man they found reclined against a tree, a hand curled around an evil wound. His mouth was a ruin of yellow teeth, his clothing verminous and stinking. He had a device strapped to his arm that looked the mate of the tech festooning the Stargate.

Cam pulled a bloodied knife from his fingers and a beretta from his belt. They exchanged looks, called it in and silently agreed not to waste time burying him.

\---

Teal’c was right, of course. The farther they travelled, the more obvious the track became, until even Sam could begin to pick out the signs of worn earth, trampled grass and routes between the understorey. 

She would look up at the night sky and the scent of incense would find her like some ghostly sense memory.

They’d been so close.

P4X-235 shone a brilliant and unnatural white. The white of ice. The white of snow. The white of cloud. 

The ground beneath her feet, the ground of its unnamed twin, was soft and earthy and rich. It hadn’t been in the database.

It had taken the merest tweak to get a lock. A single digit here, a slight adjustment there. A calculation so insignificant it took moments.

If they were too late, Sam would never forgive herself.

\--- 

The bodies were cold. There was no sign of a struggle. Teal’c had covered the boy over with the brash he’d been hidden beneath and no one had said a word. The faint look of surprise on his face had told the story, the gut wound intimate and ugly. He had known his killer.

“Here,” Cam called succinctly, and Sam exited the Al’kesh without reporting the stripped body of a girl she’d found inside. 

\---

No one challenged them at the far end of the tunnel. More bodies, more blood. Throats slit from behind, no weapons to be found. The same closely cropped hair on all of them.

Teal’c scaled the wall with the barest grunt of effort and lowered a rope. The corridor they emerged into shone with gold.

\---

They’d waited for the support team to arrive before fanning out. The sprawling complex was like a maze.

After passing several rooms, Teal’c got his bearings and began to guide them, his memory of similar such places serving as the map they didn’t have.

Everywhere she looked Sam saw the unmistakeable evidence of replicator damage. She’d answered Mitchell’s questioning look with a nod and watched his face harden, but it soon became apparent that the danger was long passed. In places the damage had been patched over, severed wires spliced back together and cavities commandeered to serve as hatchways to adjacent rooms. The place had a lived-in feel. That it seemed deserted rang false.

The sounds of life drifted to them as they neared the centre of the building. Mitchell slowed them and had them scout the doorways. The people Sam saw were not what she had expected.

A single large room had been converted to a ward, every surface draped with human suffering. Men lay on makeshift beds or on the floor in the spaces between, most motionless and silent, some moaning weakly. The stench of the dying was thick beneath a harsh chemical smell that stung Sam’s eyes.

Three figures moved haltingly among the sick, their faces obscured by filthy cloths wrapped over their noses and mouths. Their hair was missing, and their frames had the shapelessness of starvation, but they were clearly women, struggling between them to manage their charges.

Sam watched as one turned a patient, another moving to slice hanks of matted hair from the man’s scalp. They moved with robotic thoroughness, handing their harvest to the third who transferred it to a sickly fire burning low in a grate. The patient’s head was dowsed and the women turned their faces away.

Mitchell motioned to fall back, and they retreated silently from the scene.

\---

The first resistance they met caught both parties by surprise.

A group of men, furtive and nervous, backed into Sam’s team from a storeroom, their arms loaded with packets of food. The first dropped his stolen goods in his haste to reach for a weapon, and the sudden clatter woke the two sleeping guards at the door. 

Two of the thieves were dropped by energy blasts from their own men, the others fell to the staccato fire of Sam and Mitchell’s P-90s. Sam turned to find a remaining guard in Teal’c’s crushing grip, terror in his eyes and choked words spilling from his lips. Teal’c released the man and zatted him, his face grave.

“We must find a way down,” he said.

\---

The mission changed after that. Stealth lost to them, the search became more urgent, the race to find their goal before discovery paramount. In the confusion of deserters and disease they went almost unnoticed, and unless resisted, allowed harassed-looking men to pass them in mutual relief. 

It became obvious as soon as they’d reached the bowels of the complex. The overpowering stench, the cries of despair. The guards they encountered attacked them like trapped animals and they formed up, taking them down as quickly as they could.

At the last intersection Cam took point, crouching first to assess the enemy positions. It felt to Sam like a week passed in that corridor, the wet seeping into her clothing, but when it came, the action was over in an instant. 

A flick of the wrist, and the signal was given. 

Sam launched from her position, aware of Teal'c's solid form in her periphery doing likewise, swinging his considerable bulk around the opposite corner a fraction of a second after the stun grenades flashed, banged, smoked the path ahead of them. A whoosh of air as she hit and rolled, coming up without pause to fire on the enemy, some of them staggering, some shouting, all of them already marked for death. No mercy. No regret. No time to think or reason. Pure instinct and training. Carefully rationed fury, siphoned, directed, channelled, boiling down to the feel of a finger on the trigger, the slam of the stock, the report ringing in her ears.

The tumble of bodies. The clatter of weapons. The drifting fog of the spent grenades. Almost before she could consciously grasp the fact, it was done. The sharp cold of foetid liquid seeping into her clothing registered somewhere in the back of her mind, alongside the metallic tang of blood in her nostrils and an electric bite - pain, she realised absently - thrumming along her thigh. Unimportant. Time later to take stock of the damage.

"Everyone okay?" Mitchell. His voice quick. Precise. Efficient. He felt the infectious urgency, too. 

She heard Teal'c's deep affirmative. "I'm good," she added, already rising to her feet. Stepping over the bodies, kicking fallen weapons to one side. No inclination to check for life signs. Unarmed and therefore safely dismissed. Faceless. Any other considerations could wait. 

She felt the absence of Teal’c at her back as he moved to examine the opposite route, but she didn’t need to check the way behind. 

She knew. 

This was the way.


	12. Chapter 12

_Stargate Command, five days later_

The words flowed over her without finding purchase, meaningless and best ignored. No turn of phrase, no speech, no label could be applied to the suffering she had seen. She didn't want to hear it defined or described. Malnutrition. Dehydration. Atrophy. All of it, unnecessary noise. 

Sam allowed her eyes to slip closed and wished she could close her ears to Dr Lam's incessant, dispassionate drone. Clinical terminology, clinical delivery. As if the people she described meant nothing to them. Mildly interesting perhaps, but warranting no familiarity or warmth. As if they where strangers. 

Maybe now they were.

They’d only just made it in time. And the price had been high. On reaching the surface, their carefully planned surgical extraction had descended rapidly into a firefight they were ill prepared to win with a medevac team and casualties in tow, and the delay had almost cost them everything.

_All this, and still almost too late._

Vala had crashed on the ramp. Only the swift efficiency of the medical staff had saved her life, though whether she would pull through was apparently still in question. Her survival hung by a thread, her emaciated body held together by a frightening collection of whirring machinery, chemicals and bloody-minded willpower. The looks in the eyes of the nurses foretold that she may never be the same again. Sam didn’t want to admit to herself that she felt the same fear for Daniel as well. 

The debriefing began to come to a close around her, her participation automatic. She felt no inclination to register the expectant pauses, the significant shared looks, the barely disguised concern. She rose from the table when required, made all the appropriate noises. Left the room as quickly as she could. She had a phone call to make.

\---

She hadn't allowed herself to cry during the long, six month search and the wait for news, nor since they'd escaped that disgusting planet. The need to get out, the rush for the 'gate before discovery and before too many reinforcements could come to drag them back, the stitching of the dirty laceration to her leg, the clean up and med checks; all of it had taken precedence over the chance to absorb and process the outcome of the mission.

She'd felt shuttered, closed off from herself, from the horror she'd witnessed, from what she'd been forced to do. Couldn't find tears for Vala, pale and fragile and buried in tubing, wires snaking from every surface of her body, machinery insisting it found evidence of life despite her deathlike appearance. Couldn't find them for Daniel, silent, unresponsive, trapped and unreachable in a waking nightmare, even harder to look at now that the dirt was washed away, too difficult to talk to when eyes wouldn't focus, unable to react to anything around him. Wouldn't find them for herself, a luxury undeserved in the face of her failure. Failure to find them in time, to make things better, not worse. Failure to be stronger for all of them.

But when Jack stepped out of that elevator, when he was finally just _there_ , a minuscule hammer tapped on the faintest crack of the base of the dam and it spidered up and out, spreading, crumbling, bursting and gushing, and she was pulled into his arms before she could utter the first despairing sound. For some time there was nothing but the pain in her chest and the forceful releasing of wet breaths. The quaking of shoulders. The scrambling of spasming fingers on crisp, starched uniform. Only vaguely aware of others around her, clearing the corridor, responding to a general's unspoken order. Guided without conscious thought to sit, the memory of the journey to the chair a blank.

She cried herself out for time unmarked. Until she felt emptied, hollowed, spent. She wasn't rushed. Wasn’t pushed to talk. The culmination of six month's worth of stress and tension released in the violence if a single outburst. As the initial choking urgency to expel every last breath in her body passed, she allowed herself just to cry, weak with exhaustion, but for the first time in half a year, feeling a little of the crushing weight lift from her shoulders. Surely, half the battle was won? _Please God let this at least be the worst of it now._

There was no wise crack about the dry-cleaning bill. No quirk of the mouth and tilt of the head, inviting her to laugh at herself. No pat on the back that said 'enough now, time to pull your shit together'. Just his presence next to her, another tissue offered when the last threatened to disintegrate into a wet mush in her restless, wringing hands. 

When she could finally lift her head again, she found that his was propped back against the wall, eyes fixed on a point far ahead. 

She knew that look. It asked when this would end. When they'd see the last of the soul-sapping torture brought on by the wait, the unknown of a friend in danger, the unspoken blame and guilt for not being there. He may not have been with her in the field or on base during the search, but she reminded herself that these last six months had been just as long and frustrating for him as they had been for her.

God, how did he ever do this? How could he stand to be so close to them all when this insidious pain was waiting, just out of sight, lurking just beneath the surface, biding its time?

Sam wasn’t sure what had been worse: the pressure of the task, weighty and overbearing and suffocating in its immensity; or the growing realisation in the eyes of her teammates that she may not be up to it, that this time, perhaps Sam didn’t have the answer.

How did he not crumble under the repeated pressure of missing teammates, death and failure? Why had she allowed herself to assume that mantle of responsibility, when clearly it was several dress sizes too big for her shoulders? She couldn't have passed it to Mitchell. Wouldn't have been fair, and he doesn't _know_ them, not like that. Not like eight years of struggle and victory and death and change. Not his fault, of course. It would come to him in time. Sam had accepted that until then, she would be the one to step up, to be the one carrying the combined weight of this dysfunctional family’s emotional investment in each other, to be the one hardest hit when things went wrong. She felt cowardly and relieved to be able to step back into Jack's commanding shadow, if only for a short time. Just a few days to lick her wounds, then she could be strong again.

The last of her shuddering breaths subsided and she raised her eyes to the ceiling, blinking rapidly. She took a smooth, deep gulp of air. Yes. She was done. 

"Are you ready?" he asked her. She nodded.

\---

Don't expect too much, they had been warned, but that didn't stop the suffocating squeeze in her chest as Sam watched the dismayed disappointment steal across Jack's face.

She recognised the emotions, the ugly train of thought. Recognised the self-loathing that quickly followed those very reasonable human expectations; for needing something, anything, just one small sign to assuage the guilt, to confirm the effort and to find comfort in; anything at all from the broken person in the bed, the person least able to give anything more, yet still feeling cheated by its lack. She'd danced these steps already.

Daniel had been utterly still and silent since his return, and but for the opening and closing of his eyes had reacted to nothing and no one around him. Sam had accepted this for herself, but a secret part of her had counted on Jack. A foolish hope, she knew, but she reserved her right for a rare indulgence in irrational thought when circumstances allowed.

Together they had talked to him. Assured him he was safe. That Vala was here, that she was nearby. How glad they were to have found him and how hard they'd been looking. That they'd not given up and knew he wouldn't either. That they were here for him when he was ready to come back to them. That it was okay to take time, to be sad.

After three days with no change, Jack had needed to return to Washington, and Sam knew it cut him to leave with so little.

\---

She found Mitchell at Vala’s bedside, feet crossed at the ankles and propped languorously on the edge of the bed. For all his attempts at casual impropriety – the slumped posture deep in the plastic chair, the florescent orange stress ball passing back and forth between his hands with nervous frequency, the way his head was tipped back listlessly over the rim of the seat’s back rest – Sam could detect the undercurrent of frustration and anger in his bearing.

“Hey,” she greeted softly as she approached. He didn’t attempt a smile.

The whooshing of the ventilator was a rude intruder in the quiet between them that Sam had to consciously ignore. Vala’s skin was an unhealthy milky white, her cheeks hollow. Her eyes, taped closed, were dusted a dark grey in the perfect rings of her sockets. Her striking dark eyebrows cut harshly across her otherwise colourless features.

Sam ran a single fingertip over the uneven surface of Vala’s scalp, tracing the jagged sections of black bristles. The woman in the bed was almost unrecognisable without those luxurious tresses. Slight to begin with, hunger had left her fragile and child-like. She was so much smaller without her most defining feature.

“She’ll be pissed,” Mitchell murmured behind her, his mirthless chuckle not quite passing muster to Sam’s ears. She turned to him with a wan smile that she knew didn’t come anywhere near her eyes, but he wasn’t looking and she let it fade away. 

\---

He came back to them all at once on an unremarkable afternoon.

Absorbed as she was in the report in front of her, Sam almost missed the slight movement in her peripheral vision. Her fingers stilled on the keys, the laptop scorching a patch through the denim of her thigh.

Daniel blinked a couple of times, a small frown forming between his eyebrows, and turned his head to look at her. 

A watery feeling fluttered in her gut. She allowed a tremulous smile to break free.

“Hi.”

Daniel seemed to search her face for a moment and she held herself still. The urge to reach out and touch him was almost too strong to resist.

She wasn’t sure what he saw there that made the frown deepen. Perhaps it was the mixed emotions in her eyes, the sorrowful taint to her smile, the worry and the hope, the poisonous thread of guilt running through her still.

_We left you behind. I’m so sorry._

Perhaps it was as simple as confusion.

He took in the room around them in dazed slow motion and she made herself wait, to hold back. Her lungs burned with the need to breathe, to exhale with relief and joy and heartbreak.

When they returned to hers, his eyes were fearful, his voice hesitant and small.

“Sam?”

She crumbled. She couldn’t answer, only nod and smile painfully through the tears, her hands finally freed to reach for his, mindful of the tubes and wires, the cannula taped to the back of his hand, its point beneath paper white skin. 

She was alarming him with this display of emotion, but she found she didn’t care. Couldn’t have stopped herself if she had wanted to. She grasped his fingers and shook them gently. She swallowed back her sobs and smiled at him again, her hand moving tentatively to sweep across his temple.

Mastering herself, she made herself meet his eyes and leaned towards him conspiratorially. 

“You had us worried for a while there,” she confided as playfully as she could manage, but couldn’t prevent the tremble of feeling in her voice.

_Where did you go?_

She watched him lower his head to examine the bed, his eyes tracking slowly over the trail of wires and tubing, his other hand raising to bring the mess of tape and bruising at its back into focus. She waited while he took in his surroundings, realisation slowly dawning. Waited for him to ask her what had happened, where he was.

She saw it register in the widening of his eyes, the way his body stiffened against the pillows propping him upright. Saw him struggle to sit up further, arms already moving to lever himself forward.

“It’s okay,” she said. It was frighteningly easy to push him back down again.

She almost had to look away from the desperate appeal, from the unguarded vulnerability she saw in his face. She felt like an eavesdropper. To witness something so raw, so unintentionally naked felt wrong. 

“Would you like to see her?”

A single tear rolled down Daniel’s cheek.

He nodded. 

\---

Daniel was shaking with exhaustion by the time they’d moved him into a chair, with the help of a reluctant nurse. Sam had cut off the first words of a hesitant objection with a silent look that had put an end to the matter, and had wheeled him into the empty corridor without comment.

It was a short distance to the isolation room, yet a long enough journey for her to witness the almost imperceptible tightening of Daniel’s grip on the chair’s armrest at the echo of a distantly closing door.

Teal’c looked up from his vigil as they entered the room, his stoic expression slipping momentarily when he saw them. He rose to his feet, but Daniel had eyes only for the room’s other occupant.

Sam met Teal’c’s questioning look and he accepted the unspoken explanation. Without needing to be asked, he slipped quietly from the room. 

She pushed the chair as close as she could to the side of Vala’s bed.

“She’s just sleeping,” she explained clumsily. “They took her off the ventilator yesterday.”

Daniel said nothing.

This wasn’t what she had expected. In her mind’s eye she’d imagined him reaching for Vala’s hand, pressing Vala’s fingers to his mouth, an appeal for her to get better, to wake up. She’d imagined tears. She’d imagined anger.

Instead Daniel sat silently, his gaze resting on Vala’s face, his hands folded in his lap. 

She turned to go, to give them what little privacy she could offer, but soft words at her back stopped her.

“Stay. Please.” 

He didn’t turn to look at her, didn’t move at all, but she did as she was asked, not quite returning to his side.

She wasn’t sure how long she waited there in that silent room, her concern slowly growing. She’d almost worked up the courage to say something when she saw him lift his hand and reach out towards the side of Vala’s face. He stopped short, and after a moment’s consideration, abruptly withdrew his hand.

“I’d like to go back now,” he said to his knees, and with only a short, uncertain pause, Sam did as he had asked.


End file.
